Although the power has shifted back and forth from stronger decentralized government to a dominant centralized government, the balance between the two has yet to fall completely. Thanks to the limitations the Founders installed into our Constitution, there has yet a time where the states or national government has the total power to control the nation as a whole. We call this type of government system as the federal system. In a federal system, there are different but separate levels of government who has their own powers. Furthermore, in order to ensure that the centralized government is not oppressing the states there are also limitations on certain national powers (McDaniel and Shaw, 2014). However, through the various Supreme Court controversial cases, we see that the Supreme Court is giving the states the choice to legalize or not laws such as same-sex marriage and gun control. Yet on the other hand, states have increasingly depended on the national government for funding various activities such as educational funds and national security funds (Kollman, 2013). Since states have to rely on the national government for the various funding, it seems as if the national government essentially has the upper hand over what the fifty states can and cannot do. This then leads to the question of whether or not the U.S. should consider abolishing the federal system and instead facilitate a more unified government to face the rising modern problems. In my opinion, I believe the U.S. should not abolish the federal system. Although our current system has quite a number of flaws, such as states’ rights versus national supremacy (as seen in Supreme Court cases like abortion and affirmative actions), I believe there are more benefits than dr... ... middle of paper ... ... such luxurious freedom, as does an American person. From the many benefits, I believe that the best government system that fits our current criteria is the federal system. Works Cited Desert Sands Unified School District. Advantages and disadvantages of federal, confederate and unitary systems of Government. http://www.dsusd.k12.ca.us/users/scottsh/Govt/Advantagesdisadvantages%20federal.htm Henslin, James M. Sociology: A Down-to-Earth Approach, 11th Edition. New York: Pearson, 2012 Kollman, Kenneth. The American Political System. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. McDaniel, Eric, and Daron Shaw. January 27, 2014 (8:30 a.m.), Lecture on Federalism. Shaw, Daron. January 15, 2014 (8:30 a.m.), Lecture on Articles of Confederation. Shaw, Daron. February 5, 2014 (8:30 a.m.), Lecture on Civil Rights. U.S. Constitutions, Article VI, Section 2.
This passage places emphasis on one of the three arguments James Madison makes in Federalist 10. Madison explicates the deficit of factions specifically factions that could cause nothing but “mischief” for the United States. In this particular passage, he explains how factions are inevitable in our country, however, controlling the effect of factions would diminish their “mischievous impact.” Thus, prohibiting factions assists in reducing the probability of “[a] weaker party or an obnoxious individual” from gaining power over the minority. These smaller factions that Madison hopes to avoid are a direct result of “pure democracy” that he accounts as have “general[ly]…short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.” Therefore, this particular fragment from federalist 10 serves as the precedent to the introduction of a mixed Constitution of a democracy and republic, in this case, a large republic.
An example of this would be that the federal government has control over the military, foreign policy, our postal system and the monetary policies. The state government has the responsibility for the police/law enforcement, road building and the schools.
The Merits of the federal System is a discourse of Federalism: does the author think Federalism is a positive system? Why or why not:
The United States of America is one of the most powerful nation-states in the world today. The framers of the American Constitution spent a great deal of time and effort into making sure this power wasn’t too centralized in one aspect of the government. They created three branches of government to help maintain a checks and balance system. In this paper I will discuss these three branches, the legislative, the executive, and the judicial, for both the state and federal level.
Despite American government being characteristically dominated by cooperative feudalism, there is a persistence of national supremacy elements, state’s rights, and dual fideism. The current situation can, therefore, be regarded as balanced federalism. A cooperative relationship between state government and the national government is specifically rooted in a transfer of payments done from the national government to government in lower levels, which is referred to as fiscal feudalism (Bednar, 2009). There are mainly two types of grants which are block grants and categorical grants. This is a federal aid which is spent by states within a given policy area, although with much state discretion. General revenue sharing (GRS) was used back in the 1970s and 1980s. GRS awarded the state maximum control over policies, but gaining political support was difficult for them.
In the Constitution, central and state governments received power that was shared and split in a federalist system, preventing tyranny of one over the other. Madison put forward his idea of federalism in Federalist Paper #51. “...the power surrendered by the people is first divided between two distinct governments...The different governments will each control each other, at the same time each will be controlled by itself” (Doc. A). A Venn diagram derived from the Constitution shows that the central government controlled national affairs such as war, foreign trade, and foreign relations, and states controlled internal affairs such as establishing public services and regulating in-state businesses. The shared powers included taxes, loans, and laws. Despite Madison’s bias towards the federalist system (rarely does one truly attack one’s own political treatise within it) in his quote, the apportioning of powers shows that neither the central or st...
Following the failure of the Articles of Confederation, a debate arose discussing how a centralized government ought to be organized. The prevailing opinion ultimately belonged to the Federalists, whose philosophy was famously outlined in The Federalist Papers. Recognizing that in a free nation, man would naturally divide himself into factions, they chose not to remedy this problem by stopping it at its source; instead, they would limit its effects by placing strict structural safeguards within the government's framework. The Federalists defined a facti...
After the establishment of the constitution, the Federalist administrations faces many significant challenges when dealing with the economics of the United States; much of the country was divided over issues such as how to raise money, establishing a public credit system, how to pay the national debt, and whether or not a national bank should be established. Leaders like Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison came to represent the ideas of the people and as these ideas became more solid, debate and opposition rose. The Federalists saw multiple ways to resolve these issues, and the resolutions established that leadership in the United States would be successful.
Even though there are pros and cons of federalism, this system of government makes America a free nation and separates us from many our nations.
To define the terminology of federalism to a simplistic way is the sharing of sovereignty between the national government and the local government. It is often described as the dual sovereignty of governments between the national and the local to exert power in the political system. In the US it is often been justified as one of the first to introduce federalism by the ‘founding fathers’ which were developed in order to escape from the overpowered central government. However, federalism in the United States is hitherto uncertain where the power lies in the contemporary political system. In this essay I will outline and explain how power relationship alternates between states and federal government. Moreover I will also discuss my perspective by weighing the evidence based upon resources. Based on these resources, it will aid me to evaluate the recent development in the federal-state relationship.
The opposing argument serves as a perfect gateway to the topic of relationship between Federal and State government. In the United States, the Supremacy Clause serves...
... This thought is based off the belief that each state knows what is best for itself and shouldn’t interfere in the affairs of different states. An idea like that is flawed because the entire country would be unable to advance in any way and therefore that is why I would again choose to be a Federalist.
In my opinion I think federalism should be re-examined. Better communication and standards should be established and the governments that controls the divided powers that apply to the specific government. And also federal funds should be removed and replaced with a loan system instead of threatening other states to comply with the regulations no matter how important it is. For example, If the Congress asks for funding to a state, Congress forces the states to give them fundings. Why not let the states loan them money so that Congress could pay them back so no threats can be made to either sides? So overall we should have less conflict between the 2 and work together for the better of the
In spite of the prominence of the states in everyday life, the most demanding public policy questions former to the American Civil War involved discussions over the possibility of national power with most Americans believing it should remain partial. Yet federalism was still the center of political arguments. The Constitution did not report if states did nor did not reserve any remaining sovereignty in the powers given to the national government. The fact that the states were much more capable in accomplishing governmental purposes adequately t...
I believe that the advantages that Federalism provides far outweigh those of the anti-federalist movement. Our founding fathers wisely perceived that the idea of a centralized government was a big concern for abuse of power. Federalism represents many of the values of modern Democracy and grants individual states the power to make decisions that best suit their needs. Local government understands local issues better than a centralized government that often sees the nation as one big piece of land instead of smaller areas, each with distinct demographics and problems. For instance, issues concerning illegal immigration in Texas would be best handled by local authorities rather than by someone in Kansas, a non border state. By the same token, representatives of communities with different aspirations, ethnicity and cultures should be handled locally as the federal government might overlook the needs of these groups. One perfect example of the above mentioned scenario is the public school system. In a federalist system the local government decides what kind of schools will operate. Therefore, they might make better decisions when it comes to opening schools among large immigrant populations, perhaps creating a few bi-lingual schools to fulfill the population’s needs.