| | States' rights advocates need to be divided, issue by issue into two camps.
One is where they think it is okay to violate an individual right, but only when it is done at the state level. Pre-civil war slavery being the worst example of that. There are states' righters that advocate for states' rights just as a way to be able to enforce things that shouldn't be. Another example would be evangelicals that want outlawing abortion to be a state decision. But they only want that because they see it as a beginning. They probably think that they have more control at the state level. And if they had enough support they would have it outlawed at the national level. For them, in this instance, states rights would be pragmatic tool of the moment. Bachmann is in this camp for Abortion.
The other camp is made of those who divide powers between the federal government and the state government to reduce the chance of the federal government being able to grow (after all, states can often be more powerful adversaries than individuals). This camp, one hopes, will recognize that the individual state does NOT have the right to violate an individual right and understands that various state constitutions need to be amended.
Bachmann was probably just being political. Perry is the person that has to be knocked down to give her a chance to stay in the race. I would guess that Bachmann is usually a states' rights person in the second camp. (That the meaning of "liberty interest" is similar to individual rights - but I don't know how she holds it in her mind, and I don't know all of the places where she veers off the rational path when it comes to religious issues.)
Perry seems to be a stronger states rights proponent in some areas, even flirting with seccession, but then he doesn't think states have the rights to enforce immigration - his philosophical grounding seems much weaker and less a product of political principles.
I think Bachmann is primarily a constitutional conservative with strong evangelical beliefs, and Perry is primarily an evangelical who is a conservative second.
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So, sir, we find that not alone in these two conventions, but by the common action of the states, there was an important addition made to the Constitution by which it was expressly provided that it should not be construed to be a General Government over all the people, but that it was a Government of States, which delegated powers to the General Government. The language of the ninth and tenth amendments to the Constitution is susceptible of no other construction: 'The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.'
