states' rights

Rights or powers retained by the regional governments of a federal union under the provisions of a federal constitution. In the U.S., Switzerland, and Australia, the powers of the regional governments are those that remain after the powers of the central government have been enumerated in the constitution. The powers of both the state or regional and national levels of government are defined clearly by specific provisions of the constitutions of Canada and Germany. The concept of states' rights is closely related to that of the 18th-century European concept of state rights, which was invoked to legitimate the powers vested in sovereign national governments. In the U.S. before the mid-19th century, some Southern states claimed the right to annul an act of the federal government within their boundaries (see nullification), as well as the right to secede from the Union. The constitutional question was resolved against the South by the North's victory in the American Civil War. In the civil rights era, states' rights were invoked by opponents of federal efforts to enforce racial integration in public schools. The federal government can influence state policy even in areas that are constitutionally the purview of the states (e.g., education, local road construction) through withholding funds from states that fail to comply with its wishes. In the late 20th century the term came to be applied more broadly to a variety of efforts aimed at reducing the powers of national governments.

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Institution for the training of commissioned officers for the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps. It was founded at Annapolis, Md., in 1845 and reorganized in 1850–51. Women were first admitted in 1976. Graduates are awarded the degree of bachelor of science and a commission as ensign in the Navy or as second lieutenant in the Marine Corps. Annapolis has produced many notable Americans, including George Dewey, Richard E. Byrd, Chester Nimitz, William F. Halsey, Jr., A.A. Michelson, Hyman Rickover, Jimmy Carter, Ross Perot, and several astronauts.

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Institution for the training of commissioned officers for the U.S. Army. Founded in 1802 at the fort at West Point, N.Y., it is one of the oldest service academies in the world. It was established as an apprentice school for military engineers and was, in effect, the first U.S. school of engineering. It was reorganized in 1812, and in 1866 its educational program was expanded considerably. Women were first admitted in 1976. The four-year course of college-level education and training leads to a bachelor of science degree and a commission as second lieutenant in the Army. West Point has trained such leaders as Ulysses S. Grant, William T. Sherman, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Jefferson Davis, John Pershing, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur, Omar Bradley, and George Patton.

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Institution for the training of commissioned officers for the U.S. Air Force, located in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Created by an act of Congress in 1954, it opened in 1955. Graduates receive a bachelor's degree and a second lieutenant's commission. Most physically qualified graduates go on to Air Force pilot-training schools. Candidates may come from the ranks of the U.S. Army or Air Force, may be children of deceased veterans of the armed forces, or may be nominated by U.S. senators or representatives or by the president or vice president. All applicants must take a competitive entrance examination.

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Country, North America. It comprises 48 conterminous states occupying the mid-continent, Alaska at the northwestern extreme of North America, and the island state of Hawaii in the mid-Pacific Ocean. Area, including the U.S. share of the Great Lakes: 3,676,487 sq mi (9,522,058 sq km). Population (2005 est.): 296,748,000. Capital: Washington, D.C. The population includes people of European and Middle Eastern ancestry, African Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Pacific Islanders, American Indians (Native Americans), and Alaska Natives. Languages: English (predominant), Spanish. Religions: Christianity (Protestant, Roman Catholic, other Christians, Eastern Orthodox); also Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism. Currency: U.S. dollar. The country encompasses mountains, plains, lowlands, and deserts. Mountain ranges include the Appalachians, Ozarks, Rockies, Cascades, and Sierra Nevada. The lowest point is Death Valley, Calif. The highest point is Alaska's Mount McKinley; within the conterminous states it is Mount Whitney, Calif. Chief rivers are the Mississippi system, the Colorado, the Columbia, and the Rio Grande. The Great Lakes, the Great Salt Lake, Iliamna Lake, and Lake Okeechobee are the largest lakes. The U.S. is among the world's leading producers of several minerals, including copper, silver, zinc, gold, coal, petroleum, and natural gas; it is the chief exporter of food. Its manufactures include iron and steel, chemicals, electronic equipment, and textiles. Other important industries are tourism, dairying, livestock raising, fishing, and lumbering. The U.S. is a federal republic with two legislative houses; its head of state and government is the president.

The territory was originally inhabited for several thousand years by numerous American Indian peoples who had probably migrated from Asia. European exploration and settlement from the 16th century began displacement of the Indians. The first permanent European settlement, by the Spanish, was at Saint Augustine, Fla., in 1565. The English settled Jamestown, Va. (1607); Plymouth, Mass. (1620); Maryland (1634); and Pennsylvania (1681). The English took New York, New Jersey, and Delaware from the Dutch in 1664, a year after English noblemen had begun to colonize the Carolinas. The British defeat of the French in 1763 (see French and Indian War) assured Britain political control over its 13 colonies. Political unrest caused by British colonial policy culminated in the American Revolution (1775–83) and the Declaration of Independence (1776). The U.S. was first organized under the Articles of Confederation (1781), then finally under the Constitution (1787) as a federal republic. Boundaries extended west to the Mississippi River, excluding Spanish Florida. Land acquired from France by the Louisiana Purchase (1803) nearly doubled the country's territory. The U.S. fought the War of 1812 against the British and acquired Florida from Spain in 1819. In 1830 it legalized the removal of American Indians to lands west of the Mississippi River. Settlement expanded into the Far West in the mid-19th century, especially after the discovery of gold in California in 1848 (see gold rush). Victory in the Mexican War (1846–48) brought the territory of seven more future states (including California and Texas) into U.S. hands. The northwestern boundary was established by treaty with Britain in 1846. The U.S. acquired southern Arizona by the Gadsden Purchase (1853). It suffered disunity during the conflict between the slavery-based plantation economy in the South and the industrial and agricultural economy in the North, culminating in the American Civil War and the abolition of slavery under the 13th Amendment. After Reconstruction (1865–77) the U.S. experienced rapid growth, urbanization, industrial development, and European immigration. In 1887 it authorized allotment of American Indian reservation land to individual tribesmen, resulting in widespread loss of land to whites. Victory in the Spanish-American War brought the U.S. the overseas territories of the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico. By the end of the 19th century, it had further developed foreign trade and acquired other outlying territories, including Alaska, Midway Island, the Hawaiian Islands, Wake Island, American Samoa, and the Panama Canal Zone.

The U.S. participated in World War I in 1917–18. It granted suffrage to women in 1920 and citizenship to American Indians in 1924. The stock market crash of 1929 led to the Great Depression, which New Deal legislation combated by increasing the federal government's role in the economy. The U.S. entered World War II after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor (Dec. 7, 1941). The explosion by the U.S. of an atomic bomb on Hiroshima (Aug. 6, 1945) and another on Nagasaki (Aug. 9, 1945), Japan, brought about Japan's surrender. Thereafter the U.S. was the military and economic leader of the Western world. In the first decade after the war, it aided the reconstruction of Europe and Japan and became embroiled in a rivalry with the Soviet Union known as the Cold War. It participated in the Korean War from 1950 to 1953. In 1952 it granted autonomous commonwealth status to Puerto Rico. Racial segregation in schools was declared unconstitutional in 1954. Alaska and Hawaii were made states in 1959. In 1964 Congress passed the Civil Rights Act and authorized U.S. entry into the Vietnam War. The mid- to late 1960s were marked by widespread civil disorder, including race riots and antiwar demonstrations. The U.S. accomplished the first manned lunar landing in 1969. All U.S. troops were withdrawn from Vietnam in 1973. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the U.S. assumed the status of sole world superpower. The U.S. led a coalition of forces against Iraq in the Persian Gulf War (1990–91). Administration of the Panama Canal was turned over to Panama in 1999. After the September 11 attacks on the U.S. in 2001 destroyed the World Trade Center and part of the Pentagon, the U.S. attacked Afghanistan's Taliban government for harbouring and refusing to extradite the mastermind of the terrorism, Osama bin Laden. In 2003 the U.S. attacked Iraq, with British support, and overthrew the government of Ssubdotaddām Hsubdotussein (see Iraq War).

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Fundamental law of the U.S. federal system of government and a landmark document of the Western world. It is the oldest written national constitution in operation, completed in 1787 at the Constitutional Convention of 55 delegates who met in Philadelphia, ostensibly to amend the Articles of Confederation. The Constitution was ratified in June 1788, but because ratification in many states was contingent on the promised addition of a Bill of Rights, Congress proposed 12 amendments in September 1789; 10 were ratified by the states, and their adoption was certified on Dec. 15, 1791. The framers were especially concerned with limiting the power of the government and securing the liberty of citizens. The Constitution's separation of the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government, the checks and balances of each branch against the other, and the explicit guarantees of individual liberty were all designed to strike a balance between authority and liberty. Article I vests all legislative powers in the Congress—the House of Representatives and the Senate. Article II vests executive power in the president. Article III places judicial power in the hands of the courts. Article IV deals, in part, with relations among the states and with the privileges of the citizens, Article V with amendment procedure, and Article VI with public debts and the supremacy of the Constitution. Article VII stipulates that the Constitution would become operational after being ratified by nine states. The 10th Amendment limits the national government's powers to those expressly listed in the Constitution; the states, unless otherwise restricted, possess all the remaining (or “residual”) powers of government. Amendments to the Constitution may be proposed by a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress or by a convention called by Congress on the application of the legislatures of two-thirds of the states. (All subsequent amendments have been initiated by Congress.) Amendments proposed by Congress must be ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures or by conventions in as many states. Twenty-seven amendments have been added to the Constitution since 1789. In addition to the Bill of Rights, these include the 13th (1865), abolishing slavery; the 14th (1868), requiring due process and equal protection under the law; the 15th (1870), guaranteeing the right to vote regardless of race; the 17th (1913), providing for the direct election of U.S. senators; the 19th (1920), instituting women's suffrage, and the 22nd (1951), limiting the presidency to two terms. Seealso civil liberty; commerce clause; Equal Rights Amendment; establishment clause; freedom of speech; judiciary; states' rights.

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Legislature of the U.S., separated structurally from the executive and judicial (see judiciary) branches of government. Established by the Constitution of the United States, it succeeded the unicameral congress created by the Articles of Confederation (1781). It consists of the Senate and the House of Representatives. Representation in the Senate is fixed at two senators per state. Until passage of the 17th Amendment (1913), senators were appointed by the state legislatures; since then they have been elected directly. In the House, representation is proportional to each state's population; total membership is restricted (since 1912) to 435 members (the total rose temporarily to 437 following the admission of Hawaii and Alaska as states in 1959). Congressional business is processed by committees: bills are debated in committees in both houses, and reconciliation of the two resulting versions takes place in a conference committee. A presidential veto can be overridden by a two-thirds majority in each house. Congress's constitutional powers include the setting and collecting of taxes, borrowing money on credit, regulating commerce, coining money, declaring war, raising and supporting armies, and making all laws necessary for the execution of its powers. All finance-related legislation must originate in the House; powers exclusive to the Senate include approval of presidential nominations, ratification of treaties, and adjudication of impeachments. Seealso bicameral system.

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Bank chartered in 1791 by the U.S. Congress. It was conceived by Alexander Hamilton to pay off the country's debts from the American Revolution and to provide a stable currency. Its establishment, opposed by Thomas Jefferson, was marked by extended debate over its constitutionality and contributed significantly to the evolution of pro- and anti-bank factions into the first U.S. political parties, the Federalist Party and the Democratic-Republican Party. The national bank played the unexpected but beneficial role of preventing private state banks from overextending credit, a restriction that some nevertheless considered an affront to states' rights. Meanwhile, agrarian populists regarded the bank as an institution of privilege and wealth and the enemy of democracy and the interests of the common people. Antagonism over the bank issue grew so heated that its charter could not be renewed in 1811. Criticism of the bank reached its height during the administration of Pres. Andrew Jackson, who led anti-bank forces in the long struggle known as the Bank War. The bank's charter expired in 1836. Its reorganization as the Bank of the United States of Pennsylvania ended its regulation of private banks.

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Country, Middle East, southwestern Asia. It is a federation of seven states on the eastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula. They are the emirates of Abū Zsubdotabī (Abu Dhabi), Dubayy (Dubai), aynAjmān, Al-Shāriqah (Sharjah), Umm al-Qaywayn, Rahamzahs al-Khaymah, and Al-Fujayrah. Area: 32,280 sq mi (83,600 sq km). Population (2005 est.): 4,690,000. Capital: Abu Dhabi. The indigenous inhabitants are Arabs, but there are a large number of South Asian and Iranian migrant workers. Languages: Arabic (official), English, Persian, Urdu, Hindi. Religions: Islam (official; predominantly Sunni); also Christianity, Hinduism. Currency: UAE dirham. The UAE's low-lying desert plain is broken by the Hsubdotajar Mountains along the Musandam Peninsula. Three natural deepwater harbours are located along the Gulf of Oman. The UAE (mainly Abū Zsubdotabī) has roughly one-tenth of the world's petroleum reserves and significant natural gas deposits, the production of which are the federation's principal industries. Other important economic activities include fishing, livestock herding, and date production. The federation has one appointive advisory board; its chief of state is the president, and the head of government is the prime minister. In 1820 the British signed a peace treaty with the region's coastal rulers. The area, formerly called the Pirate Coast, became known as the Trucial Coast. In 1892 the rulers agreed to entrust foreign relations to Britain, but the British never assumed sovereignty; each state maintained full internal control. The states formed the Trucial States Council in 1960 and in 1971 terminated defense treaties with Britain and established the six-member federation. Rahamzahs al-Khaymah joined it in 1972. The UAE aided coalition forces against Iraq in the Persian Gulf War (1990–91).

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Territories of central Italy over which the pope had sovereignty from 756 to 1870. The extent of the territory and the degree of papal control varied over the centuries. As early as the 4th century, the popes had acquired considerable property around Rome (called the Patrimony of St. Peter). From the 5th century, with the breakdown of Roman imperial authority in the West, the popes' influence in central Italy increased as the people of the area relied on them for protection against the barbarian invasions. When the Lombards threatened to take over the whole peninsula in the 750s, Pope Stephen II (or III) appealed for aid to the Frankish ruler Pippin III (the Short). On intervening, Pippin “restored” the lands of central Italy to the Roman see, ignoring the claim of the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire to sovereignty there. This Donation of Pippin (754) provided the basis for the papal claim to temporal power. More land was gained when the papacy acquired the duchy of Benevento in 1077, and Popes Innocent III and Julius II further expanded the papal domain. The rise of communes and rule by local families weakened papal authority in the towns, and by the 16th century the papal territory was one of a number of petty Italian states. They were an obstacle to Italian unity until 1870, when Rome was taken by Italian forces and became the capital of Italy. In 1929 the Lateran Treaty settled the pope's relation to the Italian state and set up an independent city-state (see Vatican City).

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International organization formed in 1948 to replace the Pan-American Union. It promotes economic, military, and cultural cooperation among its members, which include almost all the independent states of the Western Hemisphere. (Cuba's membership was suspended in 1962.) The OAS's main goals are to maintain peace in the Western Hemisphere and to prevent intervention in the region by any outside state. Since the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, the OAS has more actively encouraged democratic government in member states, in part by organizing missions to observe and monitor elections. Seealso Alliance for Progress; Inter-American Development Bank.

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Island country, western Pacific Ocean. It comprises the four states Yap, Chuuk (Truk), Pohnpei (Ponape), and Kosrae, all in the Caroline Islands. Area: 271 sq mi (701 sq km). Population (2007 est.): 111,000. Capital: Palikir, on Pohnpei, the largest island. The people are mostly Micronesian. Languages: Malayo-Polynesian languages, English. Religion: Christianity (mostly Roman Catholic; also Protestant). Currency: U.S. dollar. The islands and atolls extend about 1,750 mi (2,800 km) east-west and about 600 mi (965 km) north-south. U.S. government grants constitute the main source of revenue; subsistence farming and fishing are the principal economic activities. Micronesia is a republic in free association with the U.S.; it has one legislative house, and its head of state and government is the president. The islands were probably settled by people from the area of what are now Vanuatu and Fiji some 3,500 years ago. They were colonized by Spain in 1886 and came under Japanese rule after World War I. They were captured by Allied forces during World War II, and in 1947 they became part of the UN Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, administered by the U.S. The islands became an internally self-governing federation in 1979. In 1982 the federation signed a compact of free association with the U.S., which is responsible for Micronesia's defense; the compact was renewed in 2003.

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Regional organization formed in 1945 and based in Cairo. It initially comprised Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Transjordan (now Jordan), Saudi Arabia, and Yemen; joining later were Libya, Sudan, Tunisia, Morocco, Kuwait, Algeria, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Mauritania, Somalia, the Palestine Liberation Organization, Djibouti, and Comoros. The league's original aims were to strengthen and coordinate political, cultural, economic, and social programs and to mediate disputes; a later aim was to coordinate military defense. Members have often split on political issues; Egypt was suspended for 10 years (1979–89) following its peace with Israel, and the Persian Gulf War (1990–91) also caused deep rifts. Seealso Pan-Arabism.

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Government of the 11 Southern states that seceded from the Union in 1860–61 until its defeat in the American Civil War in 1865. In the months following Abraham Lincoln's election as president in 1860, seven states of the Deep South (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas) seceded. After the attack on Fort Sumter in April 1861, Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia joined them. The government was directed by Jefferson Davis as president, with Alexander H. Stephens as vice president. Its principal goals were the preservation of states' rights and the institution of slavery. The government's main concern was raising and maintaining an army. It counted on the influence of King Cotton to exert financial and diplomatic pressure on the Union from sympathetic European governments. Battlefield victories for the South in 1861–62 gave the Confederacy the moral strength to continue fighting, but from 1863 dwindling finances and battlefield reverses increasingly led to demoralization. The surrender at Appomattox Court House by Gen. Robert E. Lee precipitated its dissolution.

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Free association of sovereign states formed in 1991, comprising Russia and 11 other republics that were formerly part of the Soviet Union. Members are Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Moldova. Its administrative center is in Minsk, Belarus. The Commonwealth's functions are to coordinate its members' policies regarding their economies, foreign relations, defense, immigration policies, environmental protection, and law enforcement.

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Mediterranean coastal region, North Africa. It extends from Egypt to the Atlantic Ocean. Once part of Roman Africa, the region was overrun by Vandals in the 5th century AD. Reconquered by the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantine Empire) circa AD 533, it was overcome by Arabs during the 7th century and was eventually broken up into the independent Muslim polities known collectively as the Barbary states (Morocco, Algeria [Algiers], Tunisia [Tunis], and Libya [Tripoli]). For centuries the coast was notorious as a haven for pirates, who ravaged shipping and collected tribute from European states. After the U.S. war with Tripoli (see Tripolitan War), the U.S. expedition to Algiers (1815), and the bombardment of Algiers by the British (1816), the pirates ceased exacting tribute.

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Republics of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, situated on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. The name has sometimes been used to include Finland and Poland. They were created as independent states in 1917 from the Baltic provinces of Russia, the city of Kovno, and part of the Polish department of Wilno (later Lithuania). With the aid of German and Allied forces, the Baltic states repelled a Bolshevik invasion in 1919. In 1940 they were forcibly occupied by the Soviet Union and incorporated as constituent republics. In 1944 Soviet troops recovered the territory overrun by German forces in 1941. The Baltic states gained independence on the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.

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• French States-General (Etats-Généraux) of France before the French Revolution
• Estates-General of 1789
• States-General of the Batavian Republic
• States-General of the Netherlands (Staten-Generaal) of the Seventeen Provinces, later of the United Provinces and also present-day Netherlands

See also

• The States
• Estates of the Realm
• Estates of Parliament (the parliament of the Kingdom of Scotland)