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I only desire that the Federal government be restricted to only those powers delineated to it under the Constitution.

And eliminating Jim Crow was a valid federal action under the Constitution. States do NOT have the right to violate the fundamental constitutional rights of their citizens - and Jim Crow was a direct affront to the concept of equal protection. The Dixiecrats took a noble concept, states rights, and, by trying to wrap it around their sordid actions, instead fouled the core concepts they claimed they were standing for - and to this day, opponents of states rights simply point to 1948 as an effective means of trashing any good arguments in favor of states rights. And by bringing this up now, Lott just set federalism back several years.

My own view is that we should decentralize down to the level of the Swiss canton system. If we did, people could defend their freedom by voting with their feet rather than relying a federal leviathan which will *never* be satisfied with limiting its power to defending "rights."

The 14th Amendment did extend the rights delineated in the Bill of Rights to the states. This amendment would have justified the elimination of laws that required separation of the races in public accomodations or inferior treatment with respect to government services, such as public schools or city-owned transit. However, the "public accomodation" provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Equal Housing Act of 1968 went beyond the powers granted under the 14th Amendment. These acts extended Federal authority into private matters, such as the sale of housing, the rental or sale of real property, and the operation of common carriers such as bus lines. If one adheres to the original intent of the Framers, these acts were not justified under the Constitution.

If you are embarassed by the Dixiecrats espousing states' rights, are you also embarassed by the Ku Klux Klan's support of the Second Amendment or the ACLU's defense of the First Amendment? Because the People for the American Way support separation of church and state, would you call for a theocracy? Should we have stayed out of the European theater of World War II because Joe Stalin was our ally? Should we not have signed a defense treaty with Spain because Franco was an autocratic dictator? The liberals will use any wedge, legitimate or not, to attack conservative positions.

Conservatives must sear into their consciences two facts: they will never please liberals and they should not try to do so. Lott's remarks only set back states rights to the extent that conservatives let themselves be cowed by the liberal media and mainstream culture.