<P> Lopez limited the Commerce Clause to things that directly affect interstate commerce, which excludes issues like gun control laws, hate crimes, and other crimes that affect commerce but are not directly related to commerce . Seminole reinforced the "sovereign immunity of states" doctrine, which makes it difficult to sue states for many things, especially civil rights violations . The Flores "congruence and proportionality" requirement prevents Congress from going too far in requiring states to comply with the Equal Protection Clause, which replaced the ratchet theory advanced in Katzenbach v. Morgan (1966). The ratchet theory held that Congress could ratchet up civil rights beyond what the Court had recognized, but that Congress could not ratchet down judicially recognized rights . An important precedent for Morrison was United States v. Harris (1883), which ruled that the Equal Protection Clause did not apply to a prison lynching because the state action doctrine applies Equal Protection only to state action, not private criminal acts . Since the ratchet principle was replaced with the "congruence and proportionality" principle by Flores, it was easier to revive older precedents for preventing Congress from going beyond what Court interpretations would allow . Critics such as Associate Justice John Paul Stevens accused the Court of judicial activism (i.e., interpreting law to reach a desired conclusion). </P> <P> The tide against federal power in the Rehnquist court was stopped in the case of Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U.S. 1 (2005), in which the court upheld the federal power to prohibit medicinal use of cannabis even if states have permitted it . Rehnquist himself was a dissenter in the Raich case . </P> <P> Since the 1940s, the term "states' rights" has often been considered a loaded term because of its use in opposition to federally mandated racial desegregation and more recently, same - sex marriage . </P> <P> During the heyday of the civil rights movement, defenders of segregation used the term "states' rights" as a code word--in what is now referred to as dog - whistle politics--political messaging that appears to mean one thing to the general population but has an additional, different or more specific resonance for a targeted subgroup . In 1948 it was the official name of the "Dixiecrat" party led by white supremacist presidential candidate Strom Thurmond . Democratic governor George Wallace of Alabama, who famously declared in his inaugural address in 1963, "Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!"--later remarked that he should have said, "States' rights now! States' rights tomorrow! States' rights forever!" Wallace, however, claimed that segregation was but one issue symbolic of a larger struggle for states' rights; in that view, which some historians dispute, his replacement of segregation with states' rights would be more of a clarification than a euphemism . </P>

What was the theory of states rights in support of secession