Sovereignty questions persist in our politics

Philadelphia Inquirer, November 3, 2010

When I ask my American history students to define the word state, they look at each other. Eventually, someone suggests province as a synonym. Some nods of agreement follow.

Their hesitation is understandable. Outside America, the word usually means “country.”

Even here, that standard usage persists in places. Our foreign minister carries the title “secretary of state.” But her job involves spending a great deal of time abroad, not in Pennsylvania or New Jersey: She represents our state (i.e., country) to the rest of the world; she oversees our relations with foreign states (i.e., countries).

This is not just hairsplitting. Learning the reasons for this inconsistency helps explain important elements of both our history and our current political culture.

Do most Americans know there was a first United States of America before the current one came into being? They should. Although it survived only a dozen years or so, the influence of that self-styled confederation of states – i.e., countries – continues to be felt.

The first United States of America was primarily a defensive alliance. The name its members chose, the United States of America, was meant literally. Their Articles of Confederation made it clear that each member state “retained its sovereignty, freedom, and independence.” This “firm league of friendship” was no nation, but it managed to get the big job done despite its relative lack of central authority, winning independence from the British Empire in 1783.

The creation under the Constitution of the second and current United States of America, in 1789, did not put the issue of the individual states’ independence to rest. In 1860, when South Carolina became the first state to secede from the Union, its legislature issued a declaration that read in part, “the State of South Carolina having resumed her separate and equal place among nations, deems it due to herself … that she should declare the immediate causes which have led to this act.” The authors of the document believed they were returning to an earlier condition of independent statehood that they had given up by agreeing to scrap the old alliance (USA 1) and join “a more perfect union” (USA 2).

Ironically, South Carolina’s primary justification for leaving USA 2 was that the Northern states had already broken the constitutional contract by systematically defying the authority of the U.S. government. The claim had merit. In 1860, the Constitution and federal law protected slave owners’ rights to their “property.” In the North, however, slavery had been outlawed for decades, and many Northerners more or less actively interfered with efforts to recover escaped slaves.

So what does this have to do with the 21st century? The legal battles pitting the federal government against Arizona over the policing of its border with Mexico, and against California over the legal status of marijuana, are typical of the continuing struggle among overlapping state and federal authorities. Our states – i.e., provinces – jealously defend what remains of their autonomy and protect the interests of their citizens, or at least those among them who vote. And those citizens continue to feel strong state and regional allegiances.

The continuing expansion of federal authority, the steady drone of partisan name-calling in Washington, and the public’s general sense of alienation from national policymakers recall the doubts of Thomas Jefferson and others who wondered whether a single vast American republic could be sustained. It is no coincidence that America’s latest populist movement calls itself the tea party. Even a future-oriented culture such as ours searches for its identity in the past, which is why it helps to have a grasp of it.