In Support of a Strong Central Government

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

As our nation was struggling with its birthing pains two-and-a-half centuries ago, there were many issues of a political nature that needed to be resolved.  Two of the most overriding concerns were those of slavery and states' rights.

The people who had fled Europe for the Americas weren't interested in maintaining the European systems of social order and forms of government that subjugated those born in the "lower" classes and kept them there.  They wanted independence, the freedom to move about and to feed their families off of the bounty of the land without first sharing that bounty with their "betters."  The new country was to be more egalitarian and democratic than what they had left behind.

That philosophy ran counter to the reality of slavery, humans keeping other humans in chains and forced-servitude, a moral conflict that tore at the soul of the fledgling nation until if finally resulted in a horrendous war that ultimately freed the slaves but left ugly scars of racism that still fester and bleed today.

The states' rights question was deeply woven into the slavery issue.  At the core it was this:  what should reign supreme in this new nation, the will of the federal government, or the will of the various individual states.  George Washington's cabinet consisted of only four individuals, and two of those men strongly represented opposing views on the question of states' rights.

Thomas Jefferson, our first Secretary of State and a slaveholder from Virginia (as was President Washington) was a proponent of a decentralized federal government with most of the decisions of government being made at the state level.  In Jefferson's view the federal government should maintain a military and stand ready to protect the states if called upon to do so - and assist with commerce between the states without getting in the way.  The federal government could push the Native Americans around and clear lands for future settlement, and conduct wars to protect the interests of the states.

Alexander Hamilton, our first Secretary of the Treasury, was an advocate for a strong central government.  Hamilton proposed that the federal government win the good will of the states by paying off the debts that they had incurred during the Revolutionary War..  That, of course, required revenue at the federal level, some of which was being raised through tariff's on imports from overseas, but more money was required. 

Hamilton convinced Washington to support an excise tax on the manufacture of whiskey.  That tax angered the farmers who supplied the grain for the product and the distillers who manufactured it.  There was a citizen's revolt in Western Pennsylvania in which local distillers refused to pay the tax and local citizens rioted and demonstrated against the federal government.  The "Whiskey Rebellion" went on for months, and eventually President Washington sent in troops and restored order - and the dominance of the federal government was established.    Today that dominance still prevails and still generates much resentment in some quarters.

The US Civil War was the ultimate clash over the concept of states' rights - with eleven states exercising what they saw as their "right" to secede from the Union and form a "confederacy" of states among themselves.  The federal government of the United States saw the departure of the rebellious states as treason against the nation.   When troops from one of the rebel states attacked the federal military base at Ft. Sumter, South Carolina, the war was on - and eventually the "confederacy" was forced to sue for peace and perform acts of contrition in order to rejoin the "Union."   

The pain of reconstruction is still reflected today in how some people view the federal government, and it plays out in acts of resentment that are often interwoven with racism.

And all of that serves as a necessary backdrop to Indiana Senator Mike Braun's comment this week that the whole notion of "interracial marriage" is one that should be decided by the states.  Braun has since backpedaled from that statement, but it still hangs out there like dirty laundry from a bygone era.

There are areas of the United States where the ugliness of racism still prevails among the populace, and if states were given the authority to decide the issue of interracial marriage, clearly it would be outlawed in some places.  The right to gay marriage would begin disappearing next.  

A strong central government formed through the consent and participation of those it governs makes a strong nation.  

We show strength in unity, and chaos without it.

And we are strong enough as a nation to allow consenting adults to marry whomever they damned well please!