America has a charming habit: we rediscover “states’ rights” every time the federal government starts doing something our faction hates. The principle stays in the closet until it matches the outfit.

In 1957, Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus staged the classic: state power deployed to frustrate federal authority, wrapped in the language of “public order.” When nine Black students attempted to enter Little Rock Central High School, Faubus mobilized the Arkansas National Guard to block them, claiming he was preventing violence. The federal government responded the way the Constitution says it can: President Eisenhower issued Executive Order 10730, federalized the Arkansas National Guard, and sent federal troops, most famously the 101st Airborne, to enforce the court’s desegregation order.

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