Fair points, Viking and BombTaxi. I agree that States vs Federal has been a tension in US government since the "beginning"
but this is not entirely a unique tension to the US. It is more pronounced in the US than in other democracies like Canada, Australia or New Zealand - but there is a thread that links all democracies together and that is the tension of government trying to centralize power and grow itself while other forces (voters, state assemblies, special interest groups, etc.) push back. This tension doesn't exist in non-democracies because in these nations governments' interests lie in government - and they face no pressure to downsize or devolve. This pressure comes from democracy, capitalism and free markets.
Not to put too fine a point on slavery, but I believe it is fair to say that many people immigrated to the new world to achieve or possess what they could not achieve or possess in the old world. (There are exceptions to this, true.) But the question was: what kind of new world was the new world going to be? If your dream was to own 5,000 acres of river bottom and grow cotton, with a white house and shady grounds, then your dream almost certainly included owning slaves. The dream was simply not achievable without slavery (at that time - today it's thanks to Mr. J. Deere and Mr. Monsanto
)
If on the other hand your dream was to create and tend a small mixed farm, live with like-minded neighbors. share Christian fellowship and be accountable only to God, then that dream was achievable with the help of a strong wife, sons and daughters. (Think Quakers in Pennsylvania).
You mention "limiting slavery", Viking, and I am well aware of that train of thought - but - the purpose was to limit the expansion of the southern (plantation economy) states - and history shows that before the Civil War there were numerous nasty, nasty clashes over the issue to slavery. By then there was no getting rid of slavery - only trying to keep it bottled up, and that never works.
Food for thought - would abolition have been successful in Britain if the sugar plantations had been in Britain and not in Barbados or Jamaica? The struggle to end slavery in Britain was achieved in large part by focusing public attention on a commodity - sugar - and organizing a boycott. Would THAT approach have worked in the US. Don't think so.
We know from the Lincoln-Douglas debates that Mr. Lincoln had views on slavery that were - to say the least - pragmatic. For example: Federal Government to abolish future slavery and PURCHASE all existing slaves. To do what with them ..? Turn 'em lose? Give them land?
While the Civil War was NOT about slavery, but about succession; in the end the only way slavery was going to be stopped in the US was by a terrible war in which one side utterly crushed the other and imposed its will. That it reached such a point is due to what I noted in an earlier post - there was denial at the outset by men who were conflicted between what was "right and Godly" and their personal lifestyle. How many were slave owners - landed Virgina gentlemen?
And today ....? How many Americans truly appreciate the extent to which the country is dependent on illegal immigration?
The public wants cheap food, fast service, personal service .... at what price?
Chairs,
MM