States Rights go back to even before that, to the original Articles of Confederation and Constitution. Until the US Constitution was ratified the behavior of t

States Rights go back to even before that, to the original Articles of Confederation and Constitution. Until the US Constitution was ratified the behavior of the union was closer to the EU than the current US government, and the bigger, more powerful states (NY, VA) didn't like giving up their sovereignty. States Rights was dug up before the Civil War as a continuation of that argument, this time in the context of slavery.