Multiculturalism and states' rights: An analysis of the contemporary and historical presence of community-based constitutionalism in American political discourse

Multiculturalism and states' rights are familiar topics in contemporary American political discourse. They are generally understood as competing or opposing ideas, with multiculturalism representing the "liberal" idea that policy should reflect and respect cultural diversity and difference and states' rights representing the "conservative" idea that policy should unify or assimilate cultural difference. While these representations of multiculturalism and states' rights accurately depict the contemporary politics expressed through these topics, they ignore an historical record that demonstrates multiculturalism and states' rights to belong to a family of constitutional understandings that has been present since the nation's founding. This family normatively views American constitutionalism as based on substantive community commitments rather than individual self-interest and regards local rather than national community as the primary political community to which individuals hold their strongest and most enduring political attachments.; This dissertation explores the constitutional understandings advanced through multiculturalism and states' rights and argues that these topics are mutually informing ideas in contemporary American constitutional discourse. It seeks to demonstrate how the competing political meanings expressed through these topics conceal their common attachment to a community-based understanding of American constitutionalism. Community-based constitutionalism has been widely rejected by political and legal scholars as an improper interpretation of our written and unwritten constitution and an individualist, nationalist interpretation has prevailed in all periods of critical domestic conflict including the ratification, Civil War, New Deal, and Civil Rights periods. This dissertation argues that multiculturalism and states' rights together represent a contemporary challenge to the historically dominant interpretation of American constitutionalism. The constitutional understandings shared by multiculturalism and states' rights demonstrate a central paradox of American constitutional discourse: Political opposites speak to and inform each another in ways that elude conventional understandings of political ideas. The ultimate goal of this dissertation is to illustrate how multiculturalism and states' rights are mutually informing topics in American political discourse.