Quote Originally Posted by Gelatinous Cube
*cough*Another one: The American Civil War.

I don't think it would have been better off if the South had won, per se, but the utter annihalation of the CSA has led to an ever-increasing down spiral in State's Rights--which is the issue it was fought over in the first place. I think that it would have been best if the CSA surrendered in the end, but only after some reforms were enacted to ensure the proper near-autonamy of the States.
The problem was that the South was unwilling to compromise over slavery, and hiding behind the guise of States Rights. If you read the history, the problem was that the South wanted to extend slavery, and they seceeded because they were not able to extend it as they wanted. Bleeding Kansas was an example of how fanatical they had become. The Southern states seceeded even before Lincoln took office. Lincoln had said he would not allow slavery to be extended to the territories, but he would still have had to contend with a very fractured govt that would have greatly limited his power. Ironically, Secessionists gave him exactly the kind of power they feared.

It was the South that drove the country away from States Rights. Even R.E. Lee felt that secession was fundamentally wrong, " Secession is nothing but revolution. The framers of our constitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom, and forbearance in its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at will. It was intended for perpetual union so expressed in the preamble, and for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by revolution, or the consent of all the people in convention assembled. It is idle to talk of secession. Anarchy would have been established, and not a government, by Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, and the other patriots of the Revolution." Robert E. Lee, letter, 23 January 1861

Most of the drives I see in modern times for States Rights are regressive ones (not to mention the ACW.) As such I oppose them. If States Rights were used for noble causes I would likely feel differently. At the moment I have a hard time attaching States Rights causes to much of anything I support.