The states increasingly suck on and are dependent on the federal tit for all sorts of things — things they should be deciding for and providing to their own people. They have forgotten their own history as one-time independent nations or territories, and have forgotten that the federal system is a compact — an agreement — between the states. In neglecting their own sovereign prerogatives and ceding so much of their power to the federal entity, they have destroyed the most significant check on federal power, states rights.
Theoretically, the Civil War settled the question of secession. But the states have acted more like the War not only made it impossible for them to secede, but also made them SUBSERVIENT to the federal government, rather than the other way around. There are numerous delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention who never would have signed the Constitution, and many of the 13 original states which never would have ratified it, had they been able to foresee such a turn of events.
Wow! Somebody has hit the nail on the head. The inherent rights of the individual were given to the state and the collection of states has made a pact with the federal government. This is the system we were under. The central government is doing what any beast would do, eating and growing.
The reversal of this trend will, alas, not happen. Anyone is welcome to come back to me later and say that I was wrong. I would welcome that.