Sharpton said, "we need the Justice Department to step in and take over policing in this country. In the 20th century, they had to fight states' rights in — to get the right to vote. We're going to have to fight states' rights in terms of closing down police cases."

In 2012 Sharpton attacked the founding principle of states' rights when he said libertarians were attempting to create a "21st-century version of the Civil War" by advocating on behalf of states' rights.

"States rights has always been the enemy of civil rights. The idea of the civil rights movement was for the federal government to protect citizens, not leave them alone," Sharpton said in 2011 during he NAACP State Convention.

Sharpton's "On the Issues" page states his belief states' rights are "dangerous." He argues that because of rights specified in the Constitution "we ended up with slavery and segregation."

These ideas are at odds with the philosophy of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Both argue that government exists not to confer and invent new rights, but to secure natural rights, the fundamental rights of individuals and not the prerogatives of the collective.

The Tenth Amendment of the Constitution unequivocally delegates authority to the people:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

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