[amendment_x]

No, the rights of "states" were ultimately viewed as an extension of the rights of the citizens of that particular state. Therefore the term "states' rights" is not a misnomer. The idea was that the citizens imbued their state with far more power than the federal government, an idea which lost sway with the South's defeat, massive immigration, and the rise of the socialist juggernaut. The Dixiecrats were correct in their constitutional thought to the extent that segregation was a local issue that had never been previously thought to come under the aegis of the 14th Amendment. After all, the same Congress who passed this wonderful amendment also enacted legislation which continued the practice of segregation in the D.C. public schools. In a matter of speaking, then, Trent Lott was actually articulating the conservative position (although he might have added a disclaimer about his disagreement with segregation). Along the same lines, and although highly agitating when articulated, the notion that the Brown decision was intellectually dishonest arises from the same such adherence to law and Constitution. What I find disgusting in all of this is that mere words can be used to crucify a conservative, but truly heinous actions usually glorify a liberal (e.g. abortion). In conclusion, the strongest argument is that Trent was talking about "states' rights," a fact which has been almost completely obscured by the media, Occam be damned.

[amendment_x]

Sorry, that message was supposed to be in reply to El Gato.

[Bluntpoint]

Occam's razor can be pretty sharp.

Show me one "state's rights" platform, in the period that we are talking (1948) that did not have a pro-segregation slant.

Occam's suggests if talks like a duck and it walks like a duck, that it is intellectually lazy, if not intellectually dishonest, not to just call it is a duck.

[Bluntpoint]

Don't get me wrong, I agree with most antiseptic, dispassionate reviews of pure state's rights issues.

However, in most cases, historically speaking, state's rights has been used by people who want to defend the indefensible and they use "state's rights" as cover.

Again, I am talking in the past.

[Austin Willard Wright]

The Dixiecrats not only felt that segregation was a local issue. They also thought that each state should have the right to throw the plain language of the 15th Amendment out the window.