Anti-Statism Thread

Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 08:57:54 -0600
From: Kim E. Nielsen <kim-e-nielsen@uiowa.edu>

I'm trying to unpack the gender and racial nuances/overtones of U.S. anti-statist, anti-bureacratic thought (sometimes voiced as states' rights sentiment) in the first third of the twentieth century. Does anyone have any
suggestions on secondary material which might be helpful?

Thanks much.

Kim
Kim E. Nielsen
University of Iowa
kim-e-nielsen@uiowa.edu

Subject: anti-statism

Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 11:11:22 CST6CDT From: David T. Beito <DBEITO@tenhoor.as.ua.edu>

During the 1840s, William Lloyd Garrison and other leading abolitionists defended the doctrine of "disunionism." The chief premise of disunionism was that the Northern states should secede from the the Union on the grounds that it sanctioned slavery. Through use of this method, abolitionists argued that the North could stop bolstering slavery through fugitive slave laws, military protection, etc. This would seem to be an interesting use of states' rights ideology *in defense* of the rights of blacks. By 1860, of course, Garrison has abandoned his support of Disunionism although his reasons seem to have been primarily tactical ones.

During the 1850s, abolitionists in the North vigorously fought the Federal Fugitive Slave Law which had been enacted as part of the Compromise of 1850. I am not sure if Northern politicians cited violation of states' rights as one of their objections to this law but would not surprised.

During the Civil War itself, a minority of radical abolitionists, including Lysander Spooner, supported the right of the South to secede. Spooner charged that the federal government had overstepped its constitutional authority. Before the War, Spooner had supported John Brown and had even participated in a plan to kidnap the governor of Virginia and hold him prisoner until Brown was released! Spooner regarded this defense of Confederate secession as entirely consistent with radical abolitionist principles.

David T. Beito
Department of History
University of Alabama
dbeito@history.as.ua.edu

P.S.
Here is another example although it is not related to race. During the 1890s, many critics of the Cleveland administration, including populists, criticized the use of federal troops to break the Pullman Strike as a violation of states' rights. They pointed out that this policy had been imposed over the objections of the governor of Illinois.

Subject: Re: anti-statism

Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 15:09:13 -0500 (EST) From: SINISIK@Citadel.edu

First, let me aplogize to Kim Nielsen for shifting the conversation away from
her inquiry into source material. Her research, as explained further in a second post, sounds interesting and exciting.

That said, I believe that there are two threads to all subsequent responses on
the issue of states' rights. One is a debate about the existence of states'
rights arguments that were/are devoid of undercurrents of racism and sexism.
The other thread, it seems to me, is a debate as to the manifested evils of
states' rights when unchecked by all-wise Federal power.

Reference the first thread, I can note a number of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century issues that, at their core, were about issues unrelated to
sex and race. I would also argue that these issues, and their attendant states' rights arguments, best define an impulse that sought to contain the constitutional, political, and administrative encroachments of Federal authority. I refer specifically to such things as banking, tariffs, internal
improvements, inter-state commerce, and taxation.

In regards to the second thread, and Fred Carstenson's post in particular, I
would agree that states' rights has been hijacked at different points to justify distasteful acts. But I would argue no less passionately that the central state and its champions have been no less guilty in this game of race- and sex-based oppression. Moreover, what I think interesting about Mr.
Carstenson's position is that he refers to generic constitutional "imperatives"
that must somehow trump a concept of states' rights that is firmly embedded in
Tenth Amendment. I realize that there is an extensive debate on the meaning
of the Tenth, but in the end why are your "imperatives," or better yet "pnumbras and emmanations," more valued than plain text? This opens up a much
broader debate, but, what the heck, why not?

Kyle S. Sinisi
The Citadel

Subject: Re: anti-statism

Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 18:16:44 -0800 (PST) From: Ronald Rudy Higgens-Evenson <RUDY@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

This message concerns Kim Nielsen's request for secondary sources relating to
anti-statist ideology, 1900-1933, and the related recent discussion on H-STATE
concerning states' rights, racism, and gender.

I know of no sources that specifically treat states' rights ideology during
this period. There is much excellent research, however, on the actual division
of labor between state and federal government. Although the following citations do not focus on ideology per se, they contain good bibliographic and
conceptual treatments of federalism during the Progressive Era.

Theda Skocpol, _Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States_ (Cambridge: Belknap, Harvard UP, 1992) is
the first citation that springs to mind. Skocpol presents an excellent discussion of the state-by-state spread of mothers' pensions and other welfaremeasures. Morton Keller, _Regulating a New Society: Public Policy and Social
Change in America, 1900-1933_ (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1994) is a good treatment of policymaking in general during this period. Martin J. Sklar, _The
Corporate Reconstruction of American Capitalism, 1890-1916_ (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1988) focuses on anti-trust policy, but he provides a good overview of statist and antistatist positions that may have footnotes in it
helpful to research on antistatist ideology.

As the works cited above suggest, the extent to which states' rights ideology
mobilizes racial or gendered agendas probably depends on the specific policy
issue in question. The phrase "states' rights" itself alludes to the pre-Civil War Democratic party of John C. Calhoun. Insofar as early twentieth-century ideologues used that phrase, they probably did so self-consciously and therefore probably intended its racial implications as
well. But in actual policymaking, the reasons for turning to the state or the
federal level varied from measure to measure.

Rudy Higgens-Evenson
University of Oregon

Subject: Re: anti-statism: bibliography

Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 09:15:57 -0500 (EST) From: CAMPBELL@neu.edu

The interesting conversations regarding anti-statism, especially in the early 20th century, are now confronting the essentially structural parameters that bear on the debate and literature related to it.

My suggestion is to examine the literature on the history of American federalism. A place to begin is the bibliography in Ballard C. Campbell, THE GROWTH OF AMERICAN GOVERNMENT: GOVERNANCE FROM THE CLEVELAND ERA TO THE PRESENT (Indiana, 1995). The work uses a dual federalism framework as one device to sort out ideologies and actions within the American state. But the literature is thin concerning explicit discussion of states rights within federalism in the progressive era. Here case studies of policy topics and state governments are useful. I hope to post a bibliography on federalism in the early twentieth century as one of our GAPEBIBS on H-SHGAPE, a series that will begin March 17.

Ballard Campbell co-editor H-SHGAPE <Campbell@neu.edu>

Subject: Re: anti-statism

Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 08:29:41 -0500 (EST) From: Fred Carstensen <CARSTEN@UConnVM.UConn.Edu>

This Sunday's NYTimes has a front page article on the miserable failure of many states to fulfill their legal obligations to children and families;
21 are currently under judicial restraint and supervision for their gross failures. In spite of all the rhetoric about the states being the appropriate repository for a host of programs, their track record, whether on voting rights or child welfare seems in many cases to be dismal and underlines the complexity of the tensions between federal standards (with or without funding), state standards, and empirical performance.

F.C.

Prof. Fred V. Carstensen                   Office: (860) 486-0614
Department of Economics                    Dept:   (860) 486-3022
341 Mansfield Road                         FAX:    (860) 486-4463
University of Connecticut                  Home:   (860) 242-6355
Storrs, CT 06269-1063                e-mail: CARSTEN@UCONNVM.UCONN.EDU

Subject: anti-statism bibliographical recommendations

Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 10:25:04 -0600
From: orloff@ssc.wisc.edu

I have found the various works emerging from the american political development/institutionalism appraoch very helpful in thinking about the contours of the American state, the social/political sources of anti-statism
and "states' rights" --
Stephen Skowronek, BUILDING A NEW AMERICAN STATE RICHARD BEISEL -- both his books (YANKEE LEVIATHAN and the earlier one the name of which I'm forgetting)
a number of pieces appearing in the journal STUDIES IN AMERICAN POLITICAL

DEVELOPMENT
Martin Shefter's essays (collected in a new book from Princeton University

Press)
I also like John Murrin's work comparing revolutionary settlements in US

and Britain (in THREE BRITISH REVOLUTIONS, ed by J Pocock, 1980) Ann Orloff Sociology/U of Wisconsin-MAdison

Subject: anti-statism

Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 09:00:50 -0600
From: Kim E. Nielsen <kim-e-nielsen@uiowa.edu>

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the discussion on anti-statism. It has
all been very helpful. And when I get this dissertation submitted to the graduate college, when I get it accepted for publication, and when I get all
the necessary revisions made, you're welcome to read it!

Kim
Kim E. Nielsen
University of Iowa
kim-e-nielsen@uiowa.edu

Subject: Re: anti-statism

From: SCHWEITZ@ucis.vill.edu
To: h-state@msu.edu

I am a week behind on postings for a number of reasons, so I apologize in advance if this has been said before.

I am concerned about the ease with which the term "statism" has been accepted as appropriate to the study of the historical topic "states' rights".

"Statism" is a term currently in use by those with a particular political agenda for TODAY. To my knowledge (and do correct me if I am wrong), it was a term rarely if ever used in the United States during the period in question.

What that signals to me is that the concept of "anti-statism", as defined by 1990s issues, is almost by definition going to have strongly presentist biases. More formally, I do not believe that the concept currently CALLED "anti-statism" DID have a widely-used corrolary in the time being studied.

Do you mean opposition to centralized government powers? Do you mean opposition to regulation of the economy by government -- or merely regulation by the centralized federal government? Do you mean assertion of individual civil rights nationwide, in opposition to -- rather, I should reverse that -- do you mean opposition to centrally dictated NATIONAL definitions of, and enforcement of, the civil rights of citizens?

I suspect you will find that the particular package of political positions associated with the 1990s term "anti-statism" did not exist in the period under study. If you insist on trying to cram what is most likely a very inappropriate category unto the beliefs of citizens at the time, then you will probably end up focusing on ONE aspect for your research -- and then end up simply making assumptions about the rest. Assumptions which will not be valid at all if the concept that holds those assumptions together is grossly anachronistic.

Here is a brief rundown of what I think are the issues involved here -- none of which can be described as a simple linear progression.

Economic regulation: there has ALWAYS been economic regulation in British America. LOCAL economic regulation. It was not until the completion of the railroad network in the 1880s enabled the creation of a truly unified national market that local and state economic regulation became inadequate to the task. Their inadequacy, of course, was hastened along by a series of Supreme Court rulings overturning state laws regulating transportation, health, safety, work hours, minimum wages -- as in violation of the interstate commerce clause OR (in a hilarious irony) as a violation of the corporations' "rights of due process" -- guaranteed by the Bill of Rights via the Fourteenth Amendment.

Were the laws that set up government inspections of staple exports in Pensylvania and Maryland and New York etc. etc., in the mid-1700s, examples of "statism" in action?
Were laws regulating the location and cleanliness of butchers' "shambles" examples of "statism" in action?

What about patent laws? Laws regulating weights and measures?

Each of the individual colonies had some form of poor relief legislation. Is that statism? How about the role of state governments in canal building? Who opposed which, and why? Was there a single movement with a consistent agenda that could be called anti-statist?

Or are you only talking about those who opposed the role of Washington in their lives? And then, I would agree with others' comments here about the efforts of abolitionists to use state legislatures and local courts to get around the Fugitive Slave Act -- all to no avail. One might ask -- when it comes to the Dred Scott Decision, who is the proponent of centralized power, and who in favor of "states rights"? Who declared that property rights won out over individual civil rights? The North or the South?

Our peculiar form of ground-up government has led to government economic and social regulation that takes many forms in many different combinations. Is it ALL government that is "the state"? Or just the "central government"? Why?

I sense here an effort as well to tie the phrase "states rights" in to the modern term "anti-statism". That's going to cause even MORE problems.

While the tug of war between federal and state powers is an ongoing component of American political life, the TERM "states rights" was very early on captured by those with a regional agenda. Certainly from the nullification crisis on, it was identified with the Southern region's conviction that the Northern region was out to destroy their way of life -- including slavery.

It is not particularly difficult to draw a line connecting antebellum Southern "states rights" proponents with those in the post-Civil War decades who continued to perceive the South as persecuted by the North. The same organist concepts of society (HEAVILY embued with racist and sexist assumptions) that were favored by these Southern theoreticians in the early 1800s reappear in their arguments in the late 1800s and through the 1900s. In this sense, the term "states rights" has SELDOM been invoked in the past 150 years EXCEPT TO defend the "rights" of Southern states to limit the activities of those that white male Southerners believed EXPLICITLY, OVERTLY, UNASHAMEDLY were their natural inferiors.

By the time that political science as a profession in the United States had come of age (early decades of this century), the identity of "states rights" and regional political and social divides; the concepts of The North and The South as polar opposites; was not even QUESTIONED as central to both the Constitution and the continuing political trials of the United States. As an unquestioned assumption, yes, it is certainly vulnerable to attack.

So if what you are trying to do is to show that political activists of many stripes at times felt that their interests were best expressed through their state legislatures, and resented the interference of Washington and the federal courts -- and, conversely, those who are stereotyped as always favoring state political action as opposed to federal political action -- well, that's a good idea.

But beware of both terms: "states rights" and "anti-statism". Because if what you are trying to do is tie the one in with the other, I suspect what you will end up doing is mixing the anachronisms of political theory in the 1910s with the anachronisms of political theory in the 1980s -- coming up with a concoction that may be interesting or clever, but will bear no resemblance whatsoever to the period in history that you claim to be studying.

Mary Schweitzer, Dept. of History, Villanova University (on leave 1995-96)

Subject: Re: anti-statism

Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 15:14:33 -0500 (EST) From: SINISIK@Citadel.edu

It seems the conventional wisdom that whenever we consider the historical, or contemporary, existence of "states' rights," we always conflate it with hidden agendas of sexism or racism. Is there anyone on this list who attempts to take seriously the idea that "states' rights" is a valid expression of constitutional and political concerns that have little, or nothing, to do with racism or sexism?

Kyle S. Sinisi
History
The Citadel

Subject: Re: anti-statism

Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 13:12:48 -0800
From: Brad De Long <delong@econ.Berkeley.EDU>

Can you think of examples [of "states' rights" is a valid expression of constitutional and political concerns that have little, or nothing, to do with racism or sexism]? I think of northern abolitionists' attempts to nullify the federal power to return persons who owed "service or labor"; I think of Andrew Jackson and tariff nullification ("Our federal union: it must be preserved!" "Our federal union: next to our liberties most dear!"); I think of southern attempts to assert a right of secession both (a) as a threat to pull pre-Civil War northern democrats back into line and (b) as a way of nullifying a federal government that might attempt to strengthen state-by-state abolition in the border states; I think of California's attempt to make it extremely unpleasant to migrate to California during the Great Depression; I think of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s.

I can't think of many supporters of states' rights whose dominant motivation was the principle that certain particular levels of government could do a better job than the national government at the particular issue in question (slavery? tariff? cross-state migration? civil rights?).

"Now 'in the long run' this [way of summarizing |
the quantity theory of money] is probably       | 
true.... But this **long run** is a misleading  | Brad De Long
guide to current affairs. **In the long run**   | Dept. of Economics
we are all dead.  Economists set themselves     | U.C. Berkeley
too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous  | Berkeley, CA 94720
seasons they can only tell us that when the     | (510) 643-4027  376-1362
storm is long past the ocean is flat again."    | (510) 642-6615 fax

                                --J.M. Keynes   |
http://econ158.berkeley.edu/       

Subject: Re: anti-statism

Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 15:13:39 -0600 (CST) From: HAWESJM@msuvx2.memphis.edu

This is in reply to the post by Kyle S. Sinisi.

I find it difficult to imagine constitutional and political concerns that do not, at some level, have to do with both racism and sexism. How is it possible to separate political concerns (which have to do with the allocation of power and resources) from issue of race and gender (which also have to do with the allocation of power and resources)?

Joe Hawes
History
The University of Memphis

Subject: Re: anti-statism

Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 19:55:19 -0500 (EST) From: J. Douglas Deal <deal@Oswego.Oswego.EDU>

Just a reminder that the "original" states' rights advocates were the Antifederalists of the 1780s, and most (I won't say all) of their arguments had nothing to do with race or gender. Moreover, the first genuine articulation of this philosophy in the early republic came in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798--again, nothing to do with race or gender. Fairly strong states' rights sentiments appeared in the 1815 Report and Resolutions of the Hartford Convention (no race or gender issues there either). I certainly see it as a political/constitutional stance worth taking seriously, however much it has been dragooned into the service of horrific ends at various times in our history.

Doug Deal
History/SUNY-Oswego
deal@oswego.oswego.edu

Subject: Re: anti-statism

Date: Thu, 14 Mar 1996 20:55:13 -0500 (EST) From: J. Douglas Deal <deal@Oswego.Oswego.EDU>

An addendum to (and correction of) my previous posting: The 1815 Hartford Resolutions did involve race in one respect: one of the resolutions recommended an end to the "three-fifths compromise" that allowed three-fifths of the Southern states' slave population to count for the purposes of representation in the House.

A general observation:
Couldn't it be said that anyone who takes federalism seriously also, ipso facto, takes states' rights seriously, at least in the abstract?

Doug Deal
History/SUNY-Oswego
deal@oswego.oswego.edu

Subject: Re: anti-statism

Date: Thu, 14 Mar 96 22:00:34 EST
From: Fred Carstensen <CARSTEN@UConnVM.UConn.Edu>

Kyle,

Yes, there is. But when you look at the long historical record, it seems hard to avoid the conclusion that in the overwhelming majority of cases "states rights" have been invoked to protect some existing power/privilege structure that is demonstrably inconsistent with constitutional imperatives.
Those losing rights thereby have not been defined simply by race or gender or religion--it has included in some cases a large share of the white population. The revision of the Virginia constitution early this century had as a primary objective the disenfranchisement of poor (and many not so poor) whites; the federal voting rights act restored the franchise to many many whites as a result.

Would you offer up some specific examples of where you believe that states rights have been invoked without the objective of preserving a state-level framework of relationships that fulfills your criterion? I think that might
help focus the discussion in a far more illuminating way.

Fred C.

Prof. Fred V. Carstensen                   Office: (860) 486-0614
Department of Economics                    Dept:   (860) 486-3022
341 Mansfield Road                         FAX:    (860) 486-4463
University of Connecticut                  Home:   (860) 242-6355
Storrs, CT 06269-1063                e-mail: CARSTEN@UCONNVM.UCONN.EDU

Subject: anti-statism

Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 07:40:06 -0600
From: Kim E. Nielsen <kim-e-nielsen@uiowa.edu>

The reason I think it's important to unpack the gendered and racialized contents of anti-statism and states' rights arguments is in order to NOT just dismiss it by easily conflating it with hidden agendas of sexism and racism. But anti-statism is not ahistorical, and my work on conservatism in
the 1920s includes the premise that anti-statism is not ahistorical. And anti-statism, like any political vision, has those it benefits and those it
does not. Therefore I want to understand anti-statism better; considering it
as an expression of one's understanding of government and the role of government, but also considering the ramifications of it in its historical time and place, what it meant when articulated and drawn upon in legislative
battles, and what its contradictions were.

Kim Nielsen
Kim E. Nielsen
University of Iowa
kim-e-nielsen@uiowa.edu

Subject: Re: anti-statism

Date: Fri, 15 Mar 96 10:48:31 EST
From: Greg Field <gfield@rci.rutgers.edu>

To bring the states' rights issue back to Kim Nielsen's question, I'd suggest looking through _Congressional Record_ for the speeches of southern congressmen on any number of legislative matters: ranging from labor standards (FLSA of 1938) to, of course, any federal civil rights legislation-- anti-lynching bills for example. Speeches by the likes of John Rankin in the House, Theodore Bilbo, "Cotton Ed" Smith, or Pat Harrison will give plenty of material.

On secondary sources, one place you might look would be Jacquelyn Dowd Hall's book on the anti-lynching campaign.

Good luck.

Greg Field

gfield@rci.rutgers.edu

P.S. Kim Nielsen's second posting noted that she's tying states' rights to a broader study of conservatism in the period. I'd add this caveat: much of the most strongly segregationist Congressmen were also strong supporters of FDR and the New Deal into the late 1930s. Rankin, for instance, was a supporter of TVA, but not just for pork reasons, since he backed public power projects in other regions too. An article by Ira Katznelson and Bruce Pietrykowski in _Studies in American Political Development_ considers the implications of this issue. These southern Congressmen fell away from New Deal activism when the state began messing around in their region's segregated labor market. (My $.02 worth. GF)

Subject: anti-statism

Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 11:11:22 CST6CDT From: David T. Beito <DBEITO@tenhoor.as.ua.edu>

During the 1840s, William Lloyd Garrison and other leading abolitionists defended the doctrine of "disunionism." The chief premise of disunionism was that the Northern states should secede from the the Union on the grounds that it sanctioned slavery. Through use of this method, abolitionists argued that the North could stop bolstering slavery through fugitive slave laws, military protection, etc. This would seem to be an interesting use of states' rights ideology *in defense* of the rights of blacks. By 1860, of course, Garrison has abandoned his support of Disunionism although his reasons seem to have been primarily tactical ones.

During the 1850s, abolitionists in the North vigorously fought the Federal Fugitive Slave Law which had been enacted as part of the Compromise of 1850. I am not sure if Northern politicians cited violation of states' rights as one of their objections to this law but would not surprised.

During the Civil War itself, a minority of radical abolitionists, including Lysander Spooner, supported the right of the South to secede. Spooner charged that the federal government had overstepped its constitutional authority. Before the War, Spooner had supported John Brown and had even participated in a plan to kidnap the governor of Virginia and hold him prisoner until Brown was released! Spooner regarded this defense of Confederate secession as entirely consistent with radical abolitionist principles.

David T. Beito
Department of History
University of Alabama
dbeito@history.as.ua.edu

P.S.
Here is another example although it is not related to race. During the 1890s, many critics of the Cleveland administration, including populists, criticized the use of federal troops to break the Pullman Strike as a violation of states' rights. They pointed out that this policy had been imposed over the objections of the governor of Illinois.

Subject: Re: anti-statism

Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 15:09:13 -0500 (EST) From: SINISIK@Citadel.edu

First, let me aplogize to Kim Nielsen for shifting the conversation away from
her inquiry into source material. Her research, as explained further in a second post, sounds interesting and exciting.

That said, I believe that there are two threads to all subsequent responses on
the issue of states' rights. One is a debate about the existence of states'
rights arguments that were/are devoid of undercurrents of racism and sexism.
The other thread, it seems to me, is a debate as to the manifested evils of
states' rights when unchecked by all-wise Federal power.

Reference the first thread, I can note a number of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century issues that, at their core, were about issues unrelated to
sex and race. I would also argue that these issues, and their attendant states' rights arguments, best define an impulse that sought to contain the constitutional, political, and administrative encroachments of Federal authority. I refer specifically to such things as banking, tariffs, internal
improvements, inter-state commerce, and taxation.

In regards to the second thread, and Fred Carstenson's post in particular, I
would agree that states' rights has been hijacked at different points to justify distasteful acts. But I would argue no less passionately that the central state and its champions have been no less guilty in this game of race- and sex-based oppression. Moreover, what I think interesting about Mr.
Carstenson's position is that he refers to generic constitutional "imperatives"
that must somehow trump a concept of states' rights that is firmly embedded in
Tenth Amendment. I realize that there is an extensive debate on the meaning
of the Tenth, but in the end why are your "imperatives," or better yet "pnumbras and emmanations," more valued than plain text? This opens up a much
broader debate, but, what the heck, why not?

Kyle S. Sinisi
The Citadel

Subject: Re: anti-statism

Date: Fri, 15 Mar 1996 18:16:44 -0800 (PST) From: Ronald Rudy Higgens-Evenson <RUDY@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>

This message concerns Kim Nielsen's request for secondary sources relating to
anti-statist ideology, 1900-1933, and the related recent discussion on H-STATE
concerning states' rights, racism, and gender.

I know of no sources that specifically treat states' rights ideology during
this period. There is much excellent research, however, on the actual division
of labor between state and federal government. Although the following citations do not focus on ideology per se, they contain good bibliographic and
conceptual treatments of federalism during the Progressive Era.

Theda Skocpol, _Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States_ (Cambridge: Belknap, Harvard UP, 1992) is
the first citation that springs to mind. Skocpol presents an excellent discussion of the state-by-state spread of mothers' pensions and other welfaremeasures. Morton Keller, _Regulating a New Society: Public Policy and Social
Change in America, 1900-1933_ (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1994) is a good treatment of policymaking in general during this period. Martin J. Sklar, _The
Corporate Reconstruction of American Capitalism, 1890-1916_ (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1988) focuses on anti-trust policy, but he provides a good overview of statist and antistatist positions that may have footnotes in it
helpful to research on antistatist ideology.

As the works cited above suggest, the extent to which states' rights ideology
mobilizes racial or gendered agendas probably depends on the specific policy
issue in question. The phrase "states' rights" itself alludes to the pre-Civil War Democratic party of John C. Calhoun. Insofar as early twentieth-century ideologues used that phrase, they probably did so self-consciously and therefore probably intended its racial implications as
well. But in actual policymaking, the reasons for turning to the state or the
federal level varied from measure to measure.

Rudy Higgens-Evenson
University of Oregon

Subject: Re: anti-statism: bibliography

Date: Sat, 16 Mar 1996 09:15:57 -0500 (EST) From: CAMPBELL@neu.edu

The interesting conversations regarding anti-statism, especially in the early 20th century, are now confronting the essentially structural parameters that bear on the debate and literature related to it.

My suggestion is to examine the literature on the history of American federalism. A place to begin is the bibliography in Ballard C. Campbell, THE GROWTH OF AMERICAN GOVERNMENT: GOVERNANCE FROM THE CLEVELAND ERA TO THE PRESENT (Indiana, 1995). The work uses a dual federalism framework as one device to sort out ideologies and actions within the American state. But the literature is thin concerning explicit discussion of states rights within federalism in the progressive era. Here case studies of policy topics and state governments are useful. I hope to post a bibliography on federalism in the early twentieth century as one of our GAPEBIBS on H-SHGAPE, a series that will begin March 17.

Ballard Campbell co-editor H-SHGAPE <Campbell@neu.edu>

Subject: Re: anti-statism

Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 08:29:41 -0500 (EST) From: Fred Carstensen <CARSTEN@UConnVM.UConn.Edu>

This Sunday's NYTimes has a front page article on the miserable failure of many states to fulfill their legal obligations to children and families;
21 are currently under judicial restraint and supervision for their gross failures. In spite of all the rhetoric about the states being the appropriate repository for a host of programs, their track record, whether on voting rights or child welfare seems in many cases to be dismal and underlines the complexity of the tensions between federal standards (with or without funding), state standards, and empirical performance.

F.C.

Prof. Fred V. Carstensen                   Office: (860) 486-0614
Department of Economics                    Dept:   (860) 486-3022
341 Mansfield Road                         FAX:    (860) 486-4463
University of Connecticut                  Home:   (860) 242-6355
Storrs, CT 06269-1063                e-mail: CARSTEN@UCONNVM.UCONN.EDU

Subject: anti-statism bibliographical recommendations

Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 10:25:04 -0600
From: orloff@ssc.wisc.edu

I have found the various works emerging from the american political development/institutionalism appraoch very helpful in thinking about the contours of the American state, the social/political sources of anti-statism
and "states' rights" --
Stephen Skowronek, BUILDING A NEW AMERICAN STATE RICHARD BEISEL -- both his books (YANKEE LEVIATHAN and the earlier one the name of which I'm forgetting)
a number of pieces appearing in the journal STUDIES IN AMERICAN POLITICAL

DEVELOPMENT
Martin Shefter's essays (collected in a new book from Princeton University

Press)
I also like John Murrin's work comparing revolutionary settlements in US

and Britain (in THREE BRITISH REVOLUTIONS, ed by J Pocock, 1980) Ann Orloff Sociology/U of Wisconsin-MAdison

Subject: anti-statism

Date: Thu, 21 Mar 1996 09:00:50 -0600
From: Kim E. Nielsen <kim-e-nielsen@uiowa.edu>

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the discussion on anti-statism. It has
all been very helpful. And when I get this dissertation submitted to the graduate college, when I get it accepted for publication, and when I get all
the necessary revisions made, you're welcome to read it!

Kim
Kim E. Nielsen
University of Iowa
kim-e-nielsen@uiowa.edu

Subject: Re: anti-statism

From: SCHWEITZ@ucis.vill.edu
To: h-state@msu.edu

I am a week behind on postings for a number of reasons, so I apologize in advance if this has been said before.

I am concerned about the ease with which the term "statism" has been accepted as appropriate to the study of the historical topic "states' rights".

"Statism" is a term currently in use by those with a particular political agenda for TODAY. To my knowledge (and do correct me if I am wrong), it was a term rarely if ever used in the United States during the period in question.

What that signals to me is that the concept of "anti-statism", as defined by 1990s issues, is almost by definition going to have strongly presentist biases. More formally, I do not believe that the concept currently CALLED "anti-statism" DID have a widely-used corrolary in the time being studied.

Do you mean opposition to centralized government powers? Do you mean opposition to regulation of the economy by government -- or merely regulation by the centralized federal government? Do you mean assertion of individual civil rights nationwide, in opposition to -- rather, I should reverse that -- do you mean opposition to centrally dictated NATIONAL definitions of, and enforcement of, the civil rights of citizens?

I suspect you will find that the particular package of political positions associated with the 1990s term "anti-statism" did not exist in the period under study. If you insist on trying to cram what is most likely a very inappropriate category unto the beliefs of citizens at the time, then you will probably end up focusing on ONE aspect for your research -- and then end up simply making assumptions about the rest. Assumptions which will not be valid at all if the concept that holds those assumptions together is grossly anachronistic.

Here is a brief rundown of what I think are the issues involved here -- none of which can be described as a simple linear progression.

Economic regulation: there has ALWAYS been economic regulation in British America. LOCAL economic regulation. It was not until the completion of the railroad network in the 1880s enabled the creation of a truly unified national market that local and state economic regulation became inadequate to the task. Their inadequacy, of course, was hastened along by a series of Supreme Court rulings overturning state laws regulating transportation, health, safety, work hours, minimum wages -- as in violation of the interstate commerce clause OR (in a hilarious irony) as a violation of the corporations' "rights of due process" -- guaranteed by the Bill of Rights via the Fourteenth Amendment.

Were the laws that set up government inspections of staple exports in Pensylvania and Maryland and New York etc. etc., in the mid-1700s, examples of "statism" in action?
Were laws regulating the location and cleanliness of butchers' "shambles" examples of "statism" in action?

What about patent laws? Laws regulating weights and measures?

Each of the individual colonies had some form of poor relief legislation. Is that statism? How about the role of state governments in canal building? Who opposed which, and why? Was there a single movement with a consistent agenda that could be called anti-statist?

Or are you only talking about those who opposed the role of Washington in their lives? And then, I would agree with others' comments here about the efforts of abolitionists to use state legislatures and local courts to get around the Fugitive Slave Act -- all to no avail. One might ask -- when it comes to the Dred Scott Decision, who is the proponent of centralized power, and who in favor of "states rights"? Who declared that property rights won out over individual civil rights? The North or the South?

Our peculiar form of ground-up government has led to government economic and social regulation that takes many forms in many different combinations. Is it ALL government that is "the state"? Or just the "central government"? Why?

I sense here an effort as well to tie the phrase "states rights" in to the modern term "anti-statism". That's going to cause even MORE problems.

While the tug of war between federal and state powers is an ongoing component of American political life, the TERM "states rights" was very early on captured by those with a regional agenda. Certainly from the nullification crisis on, it was identified with the Southern region's conviction that the Northern region was out to destroy their way of life -- including slavery.

It is not particularly difficult to draw a line connecting antebellum Southern "states rights" proponents with those in the post-Civil War decades who continued to perceive the South as persecuted by the North. The same organist concepts of society (HEAVILY embued with racist and sexist assumptions) that were favored by these Southern theoreticians in the early 1800s reappear in their arguments in the late 1800s and through the 1900s. In this sense, the term "states rights" has SELDOM been invoked in the past 150 years EXCEPT TO defend the "rights" of Southern states to limit the activities of those that white male Southerners believed EXPLICITLY, OVERTLY, UNASHAMEDLY were their natural inferiors.

By the time that political science as a profession in the United States had come of age (early decades of this century), the identity of "states rights" and regional political and social divides; the concepts of The North and The South as polar opposites; was not even QUESTIONED as central to both the Constitution and the continuing political trials of the United States. As an unquestioned assumption, yes, it is certainly vulnerable to attack.

So if what you are trying to do is to show that political activists of many stripes at times felt that their interests were best expressed through their state legislatures, and resented the interference of Washington and the federal courts -- and, conversely, those who are stereotyped as always favoring state political action as opposed to federal political action -- well, that's a good idea.

But beware of both terms: "states rights" and "anti-statism". Because if what you are trying to do is tie the one in with the other, I suspect what you will end up doing is mixing the anachronisms of political theory in the 1910s with the anachronisms of political theory in the 1980s -- coming up with a concoction that may be interesting or clever, but will bear no resemblance whatsoever to the period in history that you claim to be studying.

Mary Schweitzer, Dept. of History, Villanova University (on leave 1995-96)