ed to it those enumerated powers relating to matters beyond therncompetence of the individual States.” In fact, despite Reagan’srnbest intentions (I think we should grant him that much), therncentralization of power proceeded as rapidly in the 1980’s as itrnhad in preceding decades.rn”True but irrelevant” is the usual response of a sincere Americanrnnationalist. As much as he might regret the death of thernold republic, the nationalist is a pragmatist who insists upon thernrecognition of new realities. With a little encouragement, hernwill go on to explain that this is a diverse nation of over 260 millionrninhabitants—citizens is no longer a relevant concept—andrnthere is no reason that a people who subdued a continent cannotrnfind a way of adapting their ancient Constitution to changingrncircumstances. “Even if we wanted to restore the states torntheir original rights and privileges, we would need all the powerrnof a central state to accomplish the task. The real objectiverntoday is the reconstruction of the American nation, and whilernthe interests of efficiency and even of justice might be served byrna stricter application of the Tenth Amendment, the various devolutionistrnmovements—whether they are calling for states’rnrights or outright secession—by dividing the patriotic middlernclasses against each other, stand in the way of the populist uprisingrnthat will overturn the entrenched power of the currentrnruling class and rebuild Euro-American civilization.”rnThe argument makes a great deal of sense, and if there werernany real prospect that Middle American Radicals would escapernfrom the pages of Don Warren’s books and lead a peasants’rnmarch on Washington, my heart (if not my head) would bernwith them. Unfortunately, a MARS attack on the federal governmentrnis about as likely as the restoration of states’ rights or anrninvasion of bug-eyed aliens from the red planet.rnSupposing a populist rebellion did succeed, what sort ofrnAmerica would be restored? Here is the real fly in thernimaginary nationalist ointment. States’ rights is not simply arnpart of the American political inheritance: it is the core that hasrndefined us as a nation since 1776, when 13 colonies individuallyrnthrew off the shackles that bound them to the British Empire.rnThey not only opposed the corrupt regime of 18th-centuryrnEngland, but they also rejected the concept of the modern unitar-rnstate (see “Mob Rules,” October 1998).rnThe usual coimter-argument—that the incorporation of thern”principles of the Declaration” into the Constitution justifiesrnthe national government’s usurpation of the rights of thernstates—is the tawdriest sort of propaganda, which is not to sayrnthat there is nothing to learn from Mr. Jefferson’s “unanimousrnDeclaration of the thirteen united States of America.” Considerrnonly the orthography: “States” is capitalized, because theyrnare the sovereign parties to the agreement, while “united” isrnmerely a descriptive adjective. The pattern is repeated in thernconclusion, which goes on to spell out the fact that they arern”Eree and hidependent States.” Their unity was through thernCongress, a body composed of diplomatic representatives of thernseveral states. In November 1777, the specific and limited formrnof that unity was declared in the Articles of Confederation,rnwhose second article stipulates that “Each state retains itsrnsovereignt}’, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction,rnand right, which is not by this Confederation expresslyrndelegated to the United States in Congress assembled.”rnIn time, some (by no means all) American political leadersrncame to the conclusion that the Articles had to be modified inrnthe direction of a stronger general government that could actrndecisively to settle disputes between states and provide arnstronger common defense against the infant nation’s many enemies,rnnot all of them foreign. It is not easy to determine the exactrnrelationship between the Articles and the Constitutionrnadopted ten years later. In one sense, the Constitution obviouslyrnsupersedes the Articles, but it is not always easy to understandrnthe provisions of the later document without having somernknowledge of the earlier. The Tenth Amendment, for example,rnis clearly an attempt to declare that the states, in ratifyingrnthe Constitution, were not giving up their rights under the Articlesrnexcept to the extent that certain powers were explicitly delegatedrnto the revised government. Even some of the more generalrnlanguage of the Constitution appears to have beenrnborrowed deliberately from the Articles so as to leave less roomrnfor misunderstanding.rnJames Madison, often called the “father of the Constitution,”rncomplained that the general government of the United Statesrnwas attempting “to enlarge its powers by forced construction ofrnthe constitutional charter which defines them,” adding thatrnindications have appeared of a design to expound certainrngeneral phrases… so as to destroy the meaning and effectrnof the particular enumeration which necessarily explainsrnand limits the general phrases; and so as to consolidaternthe States, by degrees, into one sovereignty, thernobvious tendency and inevitable result of which wouldrnbe to transform the present republican system of thernUnited States into an absolute, or, at best, a mixedrnmonarchy.rnIn Madison’s view, then, republicanism itself depended onrnthe preservation of states’ rights, and he opposed the broad constructionrnof general language (in, for example, the preamble)rnwhich, he says, could not possibly be misinterpreted becausern”having been copied from the very limited grant of powers inrnthe former Articles of Confederation, were the less liable to bernmisconstrued.” So, expressions like “common defense” andrn”general welfare,” as they are used in the Constitution, are to bernread in the light of the Articles.rnMadison’s protest against the centialization of power is not arnpersonal expression in a private letter. It is contained in a set ofrnresolutions passed by the Virginia House of Delegates in Decemberrn1798. Almost simultaneously, Kentucky passed anrneven longer and more explicit declaration of states’ rights. Therngist is given in the first Resolution:rnthe several States composing the United States of Americarnare not united on the principle of unlimited submissionrnto their General Government; but that, by a compactrnunder the style and title of a Constitution for thernUnited States. . . they constituted a General Governmentrnfor special purposes… reserving, each State to itself,rnthe residuary mass of right to their own self-government;rnand that whensoever the General Governmentrnassumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative,rnvoid, and of no force; that to this compact each State accededrnas a State, and is an integral party, its co-Statesrnforming, as to itself, the other party: that the governmentrncreated by this compact was not made the exclusive or finalrnjudge of the extent of the power delegated to itself;rnsince that would have made its discretion, and not thernConstitution, the measure of its powers; but that, as in allrnNOVEMBER 1998/11rnrnrn