States Rights Quotes - Page 2

• States Rights died at Appomattox.

  Salmon P. Chase

  War, Rights, States

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• The Union was formed by the voluntary agreement of the States; and these, in uniting together, have not forfeited their Nationality, nor have they been reduced to the condition of one and the same people. If one of the States chose to withdraw its name from the contract, it would be difficult to disprove its right of doing so.

  Alexis de Tocqueville

  Agreement, Names, People

  Alexis de Tocqueville (1847). “Democracy in America”, p.419

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• Demographically, I'm a hippie from San Francisco and I'm not culturally inclined to be sympathetic to states' rights. My cultural heritage is FDR and Medicare and federal government solutions. But if you think through the analysis, strengthening state rights is a good corrective of the aggregation of an over-reaching federal power.

  Naomi Wolf

  Hippie, Thinking, San Francisco

  "Naomi Wolf Thinks the Tea Parties Help Fight Fascism -- Is She Onto Something or in Fantasy Land?". Interview with Justine Sharrock, www.alternet.org. March 29, 2010.

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• I`m deeply concerned about Jeff Sessions, who has clearly expressed opposition to the use of consent decrees and has advanced a lot of this states` rights rhetoric.

  Al Sharpton

  Rights, Use, States

  Source: www.msnbc.com

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• [Refugees] cannot be stopped, but they can and must be managed better, more humanely, protecting migrants' human rights whilst accepting states' rights to control their borders.

  Kofi Annan

  Rights, Migrants, Borders

  Source: www.accaglobal.com

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• Medicaid is one of the rare times where Democratic governors are saying, "Hey, states' rights." We don't want the federal government coming in and telling us how to do our environmental remediation or how we're going to do our healthcare.

  John Hickenlooper

  Government, Rights, Environmental

  Source: www.businessinsider.com

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• When the civil rights community raised a lot of concerns around the nomination of Mr. Sessions, Senator Sessions, one of the things was that he`s on record of saying things intrusive, like voting rights,that he doesn`t believe the federal government should interfere with local policing, almost like states` rights kind of rhetoric.

  Al Sharpton

  Believe, Government, Rights

  Source: www.msnbc.com

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• "Family" this and "family" that. If I had a family I'd be furious that moral busybodies are taking the perfectly good word family and using it as a code for censorship the same way "states' rights" was used to disguise racism in the mid-sixties.

  John Waters

  Perfectly Good, Rights, Racism

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• If a radical devolution of powers was possible, it would have been done before. The assumption of states' rights is gone. There's no support for it in the Supreme Court and there's no support for it in public opinion.

  James Q. Wilson

  Rights, Support, Public Opinion

  "No Easy Answers: An Interview with James Q. Wilson". Interview with William D. Eggers and John O'Leary, reason.com. February 1995.

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• And it's absolutely hypocritical for the political party that talks about states rights, to suddenly ignore states rights, that say that the federal government or federalism has no business in this kind of business.

  Gary Ackerman

  Party, Rights, Government

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• Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Life, Strong, Freedom

  Speech to 140th Indiana regiment, 17 Mar. 1865

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• With respect to the words "general welfare," I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators.

  James Madison

  Character, Government, Liberty

  James Madison's letter to James Robertson, April 20, 1831.

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• I mourn for the stake which was lost at Richmond more deeply than I rejoice over that which was saved at Waterloo.

  Lord Acton

  Absolutism, Lost, Stakes

  Letter to Robert E. Lee, November 4, 1866.

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• The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

  Joseph Story

  Government, People, United States

  Joseph Story (1851). “Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States: With a Preliminary Review of the Constitutional History of the Colonies and States, Before the Adoption of the Constitution”, p.296

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• Of the people, by the people, for the people.

  Sun Yat-sen

  4th Of July, Patriotic, Democracies Have

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• I'm a strong supporter of states' rights to do what they need.

  Brian Sandoval

  Strong, Rights, Needs

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• Byrd, the former Klu [sic] Klux Klan Kleagle, is taking a stand over states' rights, or his rights over State, or some such. Whatever the reason, the sight of an old Klansman blocking a little colored girl from Birmingham from getting into her office contributed to the general retro vibe that hangs around the Democratic Party these days.

  Mark Steyn

  Girl, Block, Party

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• Principles-and I have in mind such principles as states' rights or national sovereignty or the free market or pacifism-have a way of drying up while the sap of life goes flowing in another direction.

  Max Lerner

  Rights, Mind, Principles

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• I do believe states' rights was a sound doctrine that got hijacked by some unsavory customers for a while - like, 150 years or so. I'm professionally obliged to believe that knowledge is better than ignorance, but some kinds of forgetting are OK with me.

  John Shelton Reed

  Believe, Ignorance, Rights

  "Term 'states' rights' heard anew in election cycle" by Allen G. Breed, www.foxnews.com. January 26, 2012.

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• What began as a bitter dispute over Union and States' Rights, ended as a struggle over the meaning of freedom in America. At Gettysburg in 1863, Abraham Lincoln said perhaps more than he knew. The war was about a new birth of freedom.

  Bruce Catton

  War, Struggle, Rights

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• As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Wisdom, Freedom, Humor

  "Definition of Democracy," ca. 1 Aug. 1858

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