Word: states
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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With one political principle, independent of his own existence, Ritchie has identified himself. This principle, for which Ritchie is ready to do battle at any season of the year, is the principle of State rights. It is not his hope or his expectation to argue again an issue settled by the Civil War. "The particular application of the doctrine of State rights which culminated in the Civil War bears the label of a lost cause," he believes. No one now challenges the supremacy of the Federal Government or denies the power of Congress "to reach out into the States...
...people with burdensome, perplexing laws, lacking popular sanction, red tape and the general incompetence of subordinates performing duties of responsibility." The reason for this is "because progressive men anxious to bring about social betterment have not had the patience to work things out through the slow process of State action, but have sought to attain results through the quicker and broader scope of the Federal Government." Whatever our troubles nowadays--"if crops fail, if prices go too high or too low, if men gamble or violate some of the Commandments, if alcohol is abused, if morals become loose...
Before the Civil War, says Ritchie, "the struggle of the States was for State supremacy over Federal power in the Federal domain. Now it is for State existence against Federal transgression in the State domain." There is no longer any danger of State supremacy, but there is a very real danger of State suffocation...
This is Ritchie's issue. And the denouement for which he argues is a less precarious balance between Federal and State power, a strengthening of local governments, a subdivision of so called national problems into manageable units, "so that sectional differences and class conflicts which cannot be settled nationally will be settled locally and will disappear as intraparty discords...
Finally, Ritchie's hostility to the growth of Federal power and his loyalty to the theory of decentralization brings him into conflict with prohibition. Here his attitude differs sharply from the attitude expressed by Governor Smith in his last message to the State Legislature of New York. Smith argued that prohibition is a Federal matter; ergo, there is no reason for a State enforcement act. On the other hand, Ritchie argues--consistently with his theory of State rights--that prohibition is a matter with which the Federal Government has not legitimate concern under a truly Federal system, and that...