If we lose states rights which safeguard the most precious of all human rights--the right to control and govern ourselves at home--the right of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness--then may we ask, "For what is a man profiteth if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?"

A state that loses the right to exercise exclusive jurisdiction over its own local affairs, loses its political soul, and its citizens have lost their most valuable freedom.

I wish to emphasize that the term "states' rights" means much more to the people of this nation than simple theory. It means the preservation of democracy and freedom itself....

Every section of this nation favors human rights. Everybody favors human rights. But it is a fraud upon the American people to pretend that human rights can long endure without Constitutional restrictions on the power of government. Many people living today have seen this truth written in blood in recent human history.

Hitler offered the people of Germany a short cut to human progress. He gained power by advocating human rights for minority groups. Under his plan, the Constitutional rights of the people were destroyed. The proposal to take from you the right to deal with your local problems in a way that is satisfactory to you and to invest the right to deal with those problems in Washington in a way that is wholly unsatisfactory to you is so antagonistic to our form of government and so contrary to everything that we have stood for since 1776 that it is obliged to be un-American in principle and undemocratic in execution.

The moment that government becomes remote, distant, mysterious, and beyond the comprehension of the people themselves, danger arises, and we subject ourselves to the possibility of abuse of power and ultimate dictatorship. When the United States of America was formed and the Constitution was written, the people were insistent in demanding that local government be forever preserved in all of its dignity and all of its safeguards. In the drafting of the Constitution, it was specifically provided that the right and authority of the states to conduct their own affairs should be preserved inviolate and there was conferred upon the federal government only so much power and authority as was necessary to control and regulate the relationships of the states to one another and the conduct of this nation's foreign affairs and unified defense.

Ratification of the Constitution by the original states--of which Massachusetts was one--was obtained only after the citizens in each state received definite and positive assurances that this fundamental concept of government was recognized by the Constitution Is this principle of states' rights as archaic doctrine, as insisted by those who seek the concentration of power in Washington? I say to you that it is a living principle, as vital and essential today as it was in the foundation days of the Republic--the doctrine of free society and free men, as opposed to regimentation of thought and action.

Democracy is not a thing of Washington. Democracy is a thing of the cross-roads. It is at the crossroads of America that the children of this nation live. It is at the crossroads that their children are born--that they go to church on Sunday--that the schools are placed--that the average American citizen lives his life and is finally taken to his reward. It is at the crossroads that the life of America takes place--not in Washington.

That is where I stand tonight. I am convinced that our schools are local affairs, as is the police force, the fire department, the city and county governments, the habits of the people, the conduct of local business, and all the hundreds of affairs of daily life The right to work, leaf or play, to choose our vocation and to change our job, to guide the education of our children, to attend the church of our choice, to work with whom we please, to go where we choose, are not inherent and divine rights. These rights are our solely because the federal government, by the Constitution, was denied the power to interfere with them. Also, the fields of education, housing, employment, apportionment of state legislatures, voting qualifications, police powers, tidelands oil rights, and other sundry situation, are reserve powers under the Tenth Amendment.

Government, if not properly restricted, is essentially a dangerous thing. There is no truth more fundamental than that power seeks always to increase. I believe that the maintenance of states' rights is indispensable to the preservation of human rights--that once the right of a sovereign state to exercise exclusive jurisdiction over a local problem is lost, human rights, liberty, and freedom will perish in the catastrophe. The people of all communities, cities, counties and states must either rule or they will be ruled.

There is no such thing as a vacuum in politics or government. If the rights of a sovereign state and local units of government are taken away, they will be replaced by a totalitarian government--a police state. Only our Constitution stands between the people and a dictatorship. If politicians are allowed to circumvent, misconstrue, cripple or disobey the Constitution, then Constitutional government is in jeopardy and the liberty and freedom and right of every American citizen to the pursuit of happiness are menaced.

This Republic is an indestructible Union of indestructible states. But a historical fact that many seem to have forgotten is that the states of this Union are the fundamental sources of all sovereignty and all power. The Constitution merely states, in the form of a written contract, the degree of sovereignty that the states transfer to the federal government. The sovereignty was principally in the field of defense and operating highways and poet offices. The sovereignty of the states flows both upward and downward--upward to the federal government and downward to the counties and municipalities. Some theorists try to reduce the principle of states rights to an absurdity by saying that if states have a right to disagree with matters of national policy affecting their interest, then counties and municipalities likewise have a right to disagree with policies of the state affecting their interests. These people are simply not familiar with the fasts of history.

Counties and municipalities are creatures of the state, even as the federal government is the creature of the states. The Constitution was not ratified by the people of the U.S. or by the people of the 13 colonies voting in a mass referendum. It was ratified by the legislatures of the 13 states, acting as the duly constituted officers of the people. In other words, the states ratified the Constitution in their capacities as sovereign political communities.

This dual sovereignty feature of our government is what sets it apart as an economic creation of the political genius of man. It sets it apart from all other governments in that it puts the powers which matter most to the people--namely, the police powers and the administration of local affairs--it places these close to the people where they can exercise vigilance on their adopted servants.

Not a single word of the Constitution can be changed by judicial decree or Congressional act. Any change is the prerogative of the legislatures of the states. They are the only ones who can change the wording--either by adding to or taking from--this is clearly stated in the Constitution...