[tpaine]

A genuinely American conservatism, then, must adopt the project of preserving and restoring the decentralized federative polity of the Framers rooted in state and local sovereignty.

State & local governments are independant under our constitutional principles, not sovereign. They are bound to honor our individual rights, and to check & balance excessive federal powers. They have failed.

The central government has no constitutional authority to do most of what it does today. The first question posed by an authentic American conservative politics is not whether a policy is good or bad, but what agency (the states or the central government — if either) has the authority to enact it. This is the principle of subsidiarity: that as much as possible should be done by the smallest political unit.

Very true... Just as it is true that our central federal government is honor bound to to check & balance excessive state/local powers. They have failed.

[rightofrush]

The 10th amendment outlines the limits of federal government as being circumscribed by the constitution.
The regulation of interstate commerse pretty much defines the limit of the federal jurisdictin over the states.

Of course you have to have in the mix the abrogation of the Constituion by Lincoln.