ONE NATION From the beach at Coney Island, N.Y., to Cleveland, Ohio, to the central square of El Paso, Tex., all photographed in the late 1800s, our differences didn’t evaporate after the Civil War ended.
Federalists eventually convinced the Anti-Federalists that the Constitution would protect state sovereignty and honor the country’s political, social, and economic differences. The Civil War once again brought
those differences to the surface in a tragic and bloody conflict. After the war ended and slavery was finally abolished, our nation’s regional differ- ences didn’t evaporate simply because the Union was preserved. While the Civil War and the sub-
sequent constitutional amendments removed the scourge of legal slavery, the states remained distinct, and no one would have suggested that all Americans shared a deep and abiding trust of their fellow countrymen. When pundits today lament our
lost unity, they are likely thinking of World War II and the decades follow- ing. It’s true that the fight against the Nazis unified our country like nothing ever had. After the war ended, most Americans supported the struggle against communism and the Soviet Union.
Culturally, the postwar wave of prosperity brought Americans togeth- er around network television, fran- chised stores and restaurants, and Hollywood movies and music. For the first time in our nation’s
history, Americans from New York could consume the exact same food and entertainment as Americans from California. They could drive across the country on interstate highways or hop on an airplane and visit other states. And yet, regional differences per-
sisted. Mississippi was different from New
York, and both were quite different from Ohio. If someone moved from Mississippi to New York or vice versa,
they may share a language — of sorts — but would otherwise find them- selves in a foreign place. The need for federalism didn’t die
with the invention of the automo- bile or McDonald’s. Though we had long been a single country, we have remained very different in our local cultures, values, and traditions. It is no coincidence that federal
power expanded simultaneously with a superficial national unity. The Levi- athan in Washington has leveraged that supposed unity into near-unlim- ited power.
Division is not the problem. The problem is centralized federal government.
Today, there is nothing that the
U.S. Congress, the president, or the courts can’t control. From the econo- my to healthcare to the environment, Washington tries to force its will on all Americans from every state. But New Yorkers and Texans don’t
want to live under the same laws and policies just because they both eat at McDonald’s. A superficial national culture can’t paper over centuries of sectarian differences — and that’s OK. The framers accepted the new
nation’s highly diverse population. People from different states live on different landscapes, hold different ideologies, and pursue different pri- orities.
Federalism is the only healthy
form of government in such a country because it prevents any one faction, even a majority faction, from broadly
imposing its will upon another. It preserves for the people and the
states the greatest possible amount of liberty while still acknowledging the need for some limited form of central- ized government. The system of government our
framers created can handle division. That’s not the problem. The problem is a centralized federal government. When our federalist system breaks
down, it becomes unable to handle the healthy and natural division within the American body politic. When California can impose its
will on North Dakota via Democratic representatives in the U.S. Congress, our nation is on the road to disaster. When Texas Republicans can dic-
tate policy for liberal Massachusetts residents, we experience the truly exis- tential conflicts we see today. If we want to avert the looming
disaster, we must return to the feder- alist system the founders intended by limiting federal power and honoring the real and lasting differences among the 50 states. An Article V Convention of States
must be part of that process — since our federal officials will never will- ingly limit their power — but the states must also renew their commitment to protecting their own sovereignty. They must extricate themselves
from the federal coffers, challenge federal overreach at every turn, and refuse to back down to federal threats. Our country has always been divid-
ed. That’s a good thing. But we’ve never had such a powerful, authoritar- ian government — and it’s threaten- ing to undo the brilliant structure the framers designed.
Mark Meckler is president of Convention of States and a contributor to
Newsmax.com.
OCTOBER 2021 | NEWSMAX 25
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