The Politics of State Sovereignty

The discourse of states rights can sometimes be sort of neutral and in these kind of terms. The slave holding class wanted a stronger fugitive slave act that would strengthen the federal government to enforce slavery against the wishes of local authorities in the north more than that so people use these arguments opportunistically. We're seeing echoes of this today in the fallout from dahbs where you see some states resisting other states restrictions on abortion or certain litigation restricting access to abortion.