If a radical devolution of powers was possible, it would have been done before. The assumption of states' rights is gone. There's no support for it in the Supreme Court and there's no support for it in public opinion.
One might almost reckon mathematically that, having undergone the double composition of public opinion and of the author, their history reaches us at third hand and is thus separated by two stages from the original fact.
One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.
The line of least resistance in the progress of civilization is to make that theoretical postulate real by the continually increasing force of the world's public opinion.
In the long run, much public opinion is made in the universities; ideas generated there filter down through the teaching profession and the students into the general public.
