While reading the latest thread in which people are arguing over the Electoral College, it occurred to me that the real underlying issue is how many Americans relate to the concept of an individual "State" within the larger "United States" of which we are all part.
Most of us are aware that when this country was founded, each State considered itself sovereign and technically had the right to refuse to join the Union. We could have had 13 individual nations instead of a single nation, although none of them wanted to return to colonial control either. So, they compromised to form the American Union, but also agreed on the basic concept that each State had a certain level of autonomy and self-rule - because it was felt that it would be unfair for the larger, more populous States to rule over the smaller States.
There is also a certain practical side to it, as it is assumed that people who live in an area would be more aware of the needs and issues affecting that area than someone who is an outsider. It is presumed that people from Oklahoma know better about what their State needs than someone from New York or California.
The downside of it all is that not all State governments are/were committed to human rights and individual freedom as one might hope for. The "States' Rights" argument was used disingenuously to justify and defend slavery and other policies which violated human rights - and this led to the Civil War.
Prior to the Civil War, people often had their loyalty, patriotism, and identities tied to their individual States, not necessarily to "America" as a whole. Robert E. Lee, for example, would have remained a Union general if Virginia had not seceded from the Union, as his loyalty was tied to Virginia, not America.
After the Civil War, there was a great push towards national unity and patriotism - and many of the songs and imagery associated with Americana and US patriotism came out in the period after the Civil War and leading up to WW1. The idea of being loyal to just an individual State seemed irrelevant, since we were all US citizens and all part of "one nation." The Fourteenth Amendment also added some legal "teeth" to the concept that every citizen in the US had rights guaranteed by the Federal government, even if State governments tried to violate those rights.
Does anyone actually feel any particular loyalty to their State anymore? Would one's identity as a "Texan" be more important than identifying as "American"? I consider myself an American first, an Arizonan second. I don't have any loyalty to the State government, and in fact, there's many things about the State government I despise greatly. But there are also many things about the Federal government I despise greatly.
So, to sum it all up, I'd like to see others' views on how they relate to the concept of "States," particularly in light of recent misgivings about the Electoral College and the overall relationship of State governments balanced against the power of the Federal government. If we eliminate the Electoral College, would this indicate a fundamental shift in our national philosophy regarding the existence of "States"?
Most of us are aware that when this country was founded, each State considered itself sovereign and technically had the right to refuse to join the Union. We could have had 13 individual nations instead of a single nation, although none of them wanted to return to colonial control either. So, they compromised to form the American Union, but also agreed on the basic concept that each State had a certain level of autonomy and self-rule - because it was felt that it would be unfair for the larger, more populous States to rule over the smaller States.
There is also a certain practical side to it, as it is assumed that people who live in an area would be more aware of the needs and issues affecting that area than someone who is an outsider. It is presumed that people from Oklahoma know better about what their State needs than someone from New York or California.
The downside of it all is that not all State governments are/were committed to human rights and individual freedom as one might hope for. The "States' Rights" argument was used disingenuously to justify and defend slavery and other policies which violated human rights - and this led to the Civil War.
Prior to the Civil War, people often had their loyalty, patriotism, and identities tied to their individual States, not necessarily to "America" as a whole. Robert E. Lee, for example, would have remained a Union general if Virginia had not seceded from the Union, as his loyalty was tied to Virginia, not America.
After the Civil War, there was a great push towards national unity and patriotism - and many of the songs and imagery associated with Americana and US patriotism came out in the period after the Civil War and leading up to WW1. The idea of being loyal to just an individual State seemed irrelevant, since we were all US citizens and all part of "one nation." The Fourteenth Amendment also added some legal "teeth" to the concept that every citizen in the US had rights guaranteed by the Federal government, even if State governments tried to violate those rights.
Does anyone actually feel any particular loyalty to their State anymore? Would one's identity as a "Texan" be more important than identifying as "American"? I consider myself an American first, an Arizonan second. I don't have any loyalty to the State government, and in fact, there's many things about the State government I despise greatly. But there are also many things about the Federal government I despise greatly.
So, to sum it all up, I'd like to see others' views on how they relate to the concept of "States," particularly in light of recent misgivings about the Electoral College and the overall relationship of State governments balanced against the power of the Federal government. If we eliminate the Electoral College, would this indicate a fundamental shift in our national philosophy regarding the existence of "States"?
