Letter: States rights?

To the editor:

Back in the day, the U.S. Supreme Court under Justice Earl Warren made the decision that separate but equal was unconstitutional. States were going to have to let black children go to public school. The state of Arkansas did not take kindly to that. In September 1957, their governor, man named Faubus, stood at the front door of Central High in Little Rock, puffed out his chest, and proclaimed, “Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.”

Faubus called in the Arkansas National Guard to block the entry of teens who were poised to become the first blacks to attend Central High. Later that month, President Eisenhower dispatched 101st Airborne Division paratroopers to Little Rock and put the Arkansas National Guard under federal command to protect the black students. (http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/civilrights/ak1.htm)

Under federal protection, the “Little Rock Nine” finished out the school year. Eisenhower was never impeached for his blatant disrespect of states rights in forcing them to accept and obey a federal law they did not like. So now President Barack Obama is not going to be impeached, and states will have to come to terms with the reality that they are all part of the United States and, as such, are first and foremost under federal law.