Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis tore into House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan on Thursday in a searing letter accusing the Ohio Republican of trying to obstruct her criminal prosecution of former President Donald Trump.
“There is no justification in the Constitution for Congress to interfere with a state criminal matter, as you attempt to do,” Willis wrote in the nine-page retort to Jordan, whose committee last month launched a probe into the district attorney’s prosecution of Trump.
“States’ rights” never meant “state’s right to do their own thing without federal interference” anyhow.
It meant “slave states’ right to receive the compelled assistance of non-slave states in enforcing slavery.”
The states who wanted to just do their own thing were the Northern states, who had no interest in enforcing slavery by returning black folks to the South. They were not allowed to do their own thing; the federal government sent US Marshals into states like Pennsylvania and New York to compel their state governments to participate in slavery.
Lincoln didn’t plan to free the slaves; he didn’t think he had the authority to do so, except as a wartime measure. However, he did intend to stop the practice of compelling the North to participate in slavery. And that’s why the South seceded when Lincoln was elected.