States' Rights and the Union: Imperium in Imperio, 1776-1876

Abstract

States' Rights and the Union: Imperium in Imperio, 1776-1876. By Forrest McDonald. (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2000. Pp. viii, 296. $29.95.) The historiography of the issue of federalism, often referred to as rights, is lengthy list of specific case studies. Books and essays abound on Hamilton's bank proposal, M'Culloch v. Maryland, and the nullification crisis, but one has attempted to weave these numerous events into continuing historical study of federalism. No one, that is, until Forrest McDonald. In the preface to his new book, McDonald writes that no book-length study of states' rights as whole has previously appeared (viii.). He then offers States' Rights and the Union: Imperium in Imperio, 1776-1876 as his attempt to fill that lacuna in the literature (viii.). The book is organized in chronological fashion. Chapter one deals with the revolutionary period and the drafting and ratification of the Constitution. Chapter nine-the last chapter-addresses Reconstruction and the implementation and interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment. In between 1776 and 1876, McDonald incorporates into continuing narrative the historical events that previously have studied individually, such as Hamilton's bank proposal, the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, Jackson's handling of the nullification crisis, the slavery issue, and the Marshall court's opinions in both the well-cited cases of Martin v. Hunter's Lessee and Cohens v. Virginia and the little-studied Osborn v. Bank of the United States. He also includes events that traditionally have not been viewed as part of the states' rights canon, such as Cherokee removal and post-Civil War railroad construction. From content point of view, McDonald's work is complete. Some may complain, however, that McDonald's work does not bring anything new to the history of debate. McDonald himself recognizes and admits that this is essentially work of synthesis, meaning that-though I studied the primary sources, documents showing what participants in the flow of events had to say-I relied mainly on the primary research of many historians (viii). The author's intention is to provide a narrative and analytical account of the larger contours of the history of the subject (viii). The strength of the work, however, does not lie in the simple recitation of the major historical events involving the issue of states' rights. Rather, the strength of book is the breadth of the analysis that McDonald displays. Often the current debate and analysis of the issue of states' rights is limited to the decisions of the Supreme Court. That the Court has been and is an important party in debate is an incontrovertible fact, but the Court has not been the only party. The issue of states' rights permeates our history: the debate was inclusive, not exclusive. …