4 ms·

"States' rights" is actually one of the valid answers to question 74 on the naturalization civics test. ("Name one problem that led to the Civil War.") Now I w

• nvader 8y ago
  Congratulations!
• oculusthrift 8y ago
  yep. states rights to make their own laws about slavery superseding the national law
  • greglindahl 8y ago
    Yes, this is main way that States Rights affected the Civil War: northern states ignoring federal law and federal court rulings about returning escaped slaves. I can see several folks in this very discussion who might be surprised by this bit of history. Edit: so far two different people think I am mischaracterizing what Southern states said at the time about their state's rights. I wasn't talking about that at all. I was talking about how I (and many modern historians) think about Southern states' reaction to Dred Scott and how Northern states ignored it. Please respond to what I said, instead of something I did not say.
    • Delmania 8y ago
      This is also wrong. The Civil War was about slavery. There's a speech in which a defining characteristic of the confederacy is slavery. Keep playing revisionist history.
      • greglindahl 8y ago
        I think the Civil War was about slavery, but said nothing about that in my comment. Seems that your criticism is off target.
      • JumpCrisscross 8y ago
        > The Civil War was about slavery I believe the "Civil War was about states' rights" line began in the 19th century [1], around the same time as "the number of Confederate memorial installations peaking around 1910 — 50 years after the end of the Civil War and at the height of Jim Crow" [2]. In reality, "Confederate states did claim the right to secede, but no state claimed to be seceding for that right. In fact, Confederates opposed states’ rights — that is, the right of Northern states not to support slavery" in "Northern states [failing] to 'fulfill their constitutional obligations' by interfering with the return of fugitive slaves to bondage" [3]. [1] https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2011/04/12/135353655/slavery-not-states-rights-was-civil-wars-causet https://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2011/04/12/13535... [2] https://www.businessinsider.com/confederate-statues-meaning-timeline-history-2017-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/confederate-statues-meaning-... [3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/five-myths-about-why-the-south-seceded/2011/01/03/ABHr6jD_story.html?utm_term=.f2658c73f1d0 https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/five-myths-about-why-...
        • nkurz 8y ago
          Unless you have a very subtle point that I'm missing, I think you got tripped up with the numbering of the centuries. The "19th century" started in 1801 and ended in 1900 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/19th_century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/19th_century) putting the Civil War itself in the late-middle of the 19th century.
          • brennebeck 8y ago
            Pretty sure the gp meant the 20th.
            • JumpCrisscross 8y ago
    • mwfunk 8y ago
      Thats not at all what the States’ Rights argument refers to, and you know that.
  • skybrian 8y ago
    States rights wasn't good enough for them. Before the Civil War, many people in the South wanted to expand slavery to more places including new US territories and Nicaragua [1]. If they hadn't been so eager to have their way nationally, it's possible the Civil War could have been avoided. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Walker_(filibuster) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Walker_(filibuster)
• __s 8y ago
  Libertarians might disagree with answers for Question 11
  • dragonwriter 8y ago
    You don't have to be a libertarian (in fact, it rather helps not to be) to recognize that “capitalism” refers to the dominant economic system of the developed West in the mid-19th Century, which was largely abandoned because of the widespread misery it caused in favor of the modern mixed economy in the developed world by the mid-20th century. OTOH, the test is of ability to parrot the mythology of the dominant political groups in the country.
• balibebas 8y ago
  Take the money and run.