Who has the power to govern in the United States? It is an historical fact that the Federal Government has been weakening the sovereignty of the states since the Civil War. Practically, this has meant that the state governments who do 80% of the work governing have been given less and less support by Washington which has never seen any problem with weakening their power. As long as Washington by its governmental actions took up the slack, there was no problem. Or better it seemed there was no problem until now. The coronavirus epidemic means that the states must now govern as the Constitution originally intended. They must act as though their sovereignty was very nearly as strong as in nation states. Governor Cuomo is governing New York state just as the Constitution originally intended. He looks to Washington for support just as the Constitution intended that he do, that is, it was intended that there be a central government with limited powers because states need a central government to do certain things they can not do or that Washington can do better. But there is a more important question to ask now about the historical fact that Washington for generation after generation has been weakening state power. The question is: what government do the American people accept as having the right to govern them? The truth is that the people have never accepted that Washington alone had the power because they could never escape the reality that they were governed for the most part by one of the states. But they accepted passively state authority and accepted Washinton as the government. Now with the coronavirus they are being governed actively and vitally by a state. There are many signs that they don’t like it. Men have invaded state capitol buildings armed with rifles to prottest state rule. The American political system has always been a kissing cousin with anarchy because no one of our 51 governments, state and federal, are fully sovereign. Once the people decide they can do whatever they want because there is no government strong enough to stop them thay may in fact be able to do what they want. Remember what Henry Thoreau wrote in his article Civil Disobedience: “That Government Is best which governs not at all.” Washington may yet regret the drastic way it has been weakening over the years state sovereignty. It may have been teaching the American people to be indifferent to all governments and to rule themselves. A dangerous state of things. Now Washington needs the states to act as sovereign states and they may not have enough power to prevent anarchy.
Daniel McNeill
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