Cracks in Federalist Ideology

The Confederacy Reborn

It appears that Confederate principles are alive and well in the United States.  Not only that, they are being applied more and more at the "grass roots", municipal level.

Confederate political ideology was based upon the principle of States' Rights--that the individual states of the Union were a more fundamental political authority than the federal union of the States.  Each state had a right of withdrawal from the Union, implicit in the states deciding to join the Union in the first place.  A modern parallel might be the promised referendum in the United Kingdom (or, as held recently in Scotland) to vote on whether the UK should withdraw from the EU (or, in Scotland's case, to withdraw from the UK and become an independent, stand-alone national state).

Clearly the Brits still subscribe to the principles of States' Rights and are busy applying it to the United Kingdom.  Clearly, the political ideology of the UK and its Constitution subscribe to ideological and constitutional principles more aligned with nineteenth century American Confederate political principles, than with the one-way Federalism of the current United States of America.  Once in the Union, there is no exit door.  Or so Federalist ideology claims.

But, perversely, Confederate principles are making a huge comeback in the United States.  Only now, it's not States' Rights, but Municipal Rights--although the principles are the same.