One of the most intriguing aspects of the current contest for the Republican Party’s nomination for president is the emphasis being placed on the principle of federalism, the idea that the people delegated to the federal government only certain enumerated powers and that most decisions are best left to the local and state governments. Senator Thompson is the candidate who has picked up the mantle of federalism; he has gone so far as to make a brief discussion of federalism a regular feature of his stump speech. “Power is separated not only at the federal level, but between the federal and the state level,” Mr. Thompson said at a recent stop in Iowa. “And not every solution to every problem has a federal solution, under the Constitution of the United States.”

Mr. Thompson’s commitment to federalism has prevented him from endorsing the Federal Marriage Amendment, which would define marriage as between one man and one woman in the federal Constitution. His federalism trumps his social conservatism. Mr. Thompson says he believes marriage law should be decided by the states. Even though this position puts him at odds with some powerful social conservatives he’d like to see on board with his campaign, he’s mostly stuck to his guns on the matter. In Florida last week, Mr. Thompson again disappointed some members of the right by saying that he disagreed with Congress’s intervention in the case of Terri Schiavo. “Local matters generally speaking should be left to the locals,” Mr. Thompson told the St. Petersburg Times. His spokesman was even more explicit to our Ryan Sager, saying that Mr. Thompson “believes that it was a decision for the family to make under state law, so there was no role for the federal government to play.”

There is always a danger that when white southerners start talking about federalism and states rights, it’s a code for racism. But few today — leastwise Mr. Thompson — gainsay any role for the federal government in the states. Washington needed to act to banish the evil of slavery and Jim Crow. Even Mr. Thompson was prepared to vote for, say, President Bush’s No Child Left Behind law, which did almost nothing to expand school choice or shift power to the states from the federal government and which layered new regulations and bureaucracy on local governments and school boards. What’s more, Mr. Thompson has yet to face other federalism questions, such as whether he’d let states decide issues like the right to die or the right to use medical marijuana. But we find it refreshing to hear a candidate talking about federalism from the stump. Given how unloved this crucial principle of our system of government has gone over the last few decades, it’s a reminder that the principles that animated America at its founding are still very much alive.