I don't think that the Constitution forced any states to conform except in very limited circumstances,
Read the supemacy clause, Art VI.. All States are bound by our "Law of the Land" is pretty forceful language.
and I don't believe that the Supreme Court was intended to have the role that Marshall pushed it into.
He pushed no one. The role of the USSC is part of our separations of power doctrine. The three branches are supposedly roughly equal in powers.
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'Barron' and misguided 'states rights' movement it fostered was settled by a bloody civil war, and the 14th amendment.
I am 100% grade-A pro-Constitutionalist, in that I think that the Constitution should be a limiting document and speaks in plain language that has been consistently misinterpreted. But I do think that the Constitution doesn't speak to secession, and I think that before the Constitution, the States had the right to nullify any acts by the unifying government.
So I think the States should have had the same rights after the Constitution was ratified as well.
Sorry, that's not the way it worked. The people of the states gave up some of their power to benefit from union under our constitution.
They can't change that decision [nullify acts] without amendment.
That the cause was lost doesn't mean that they were wrong about the limitations on the power of the federal government.
Who said limiting fed power is wrong? Not me..
It's just that the wrong guys won, and ever since, federal intervention in all sorts of unConstitutional spheres has been expanding as a direct result.
The civil war did not change the power structure that much, imo..
I see the major change coming at the turn of the century, when both parties started to support socialistic programs..
Party politics have ruled both fed & state since then, and socialism has won.
The 'states rights' movement is wrongly blaming constitutionalism for our political socialism, imo.
They should be blaming republocratic 'two party' politics.