What is the logic behind every state in the US having different laws?
by 
Luc Thiet Thuan
ANSWERS: 4
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Stems from the concept of State's Rights and taking the power down from the top to the citizen, or as close to the citizen as possible.
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Self-rule for each state in the country. There are NATIONAL/FEDERAL laws that must be followed, as well as the constitution, but it's not the place of the federal government to rule each and every locality (state) in it. It also allows each locality to collect fines and taxes for the general infrastructure of the locality.
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It's an old tradition, and used in federal states. I belive that those 13 original in 1776 shared some political opinions (they wanted independence from the UK, and a republic) but they still had differences so they didn't form a unitary state.
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Decentralization of government. It used to be a prized value here in America. That's what the "United States" part of the name meant. From Infoplease: states' rights, in U.S. history, doctrine based on the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, which states, “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.” The term embraces both the doctrine of absolute state sovereignty that was espoused by John C. Calhoun and that of the so-called strict constructionist interpretation of the U.S. Constitution, which reserves to the state governments all powers not specifically granted by that document to the federal government. A states' rights controversy is probably inherent in the federal structure of the United States government. http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0846562.html Federalism was a key concept when building the Constitution. It is almost lost now.
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