states' rights
Rights reserved to the 50 state governments of the United States that allow each one…Rights reserved to the 50 state governments of the United States that allow each one to set policy on some issues, rather than being subject to federal policy, especially in reference to their right to allow slavery before the Civil War.
Meaning
1 senses(US, plural, plural only)Rights reserved to the 50 state governments of the United States that allow each one to set policy on some issues, rather than being subject to federal policy, especially in reference to their right to allow slavery before the Civil War.
- the rights conceded to the states by the United States constitution
- a doctrine that federal powers should be curtailed and returned to the individual states
Forms
plural: states' rightses| Singular | states' rights |
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regular
Word family
1 related wordsSee also
neighbours in the dictionaryDictionary text adapted from Wiktionary (Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet / Princeton WordNet (CC BY 4.0, WordNet License); shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentences and recordings are credited where they appear.