The United States is composed of fifty self-governing states and several territories.
Federalism in the United States, also referred to as the doctrine of shared sovereignty, is the constitutional division of power between U.S. state governments and the federal government of the United States. Since the founding of the country, and particularly with the end of the American Civil War, power shifted away from the states and towards the national government. The progression of federalism includes dual, state-centered, and new federalism.
Federalism in the early Republic
Federalism was a political solution for the problems with the Articles of Confederation which gave little practical authority to the federal government. For example, the Articles allowed the Continental Congress
the power to sign treaties and declare war, but it could not raise
taxes to pay for an army and all major decisions required a unanimous
vote.
The movement was greatly strengthened by the reaction to Shays' Rebellion of 1786–1787, which was an armed uprising of yeoman farmers in western Massachusetts.
The rebellion was fueled by a poor economy that was created, in part,
by the inability of the federal government to deal effectively with the
debt from the American Revolutionary War.
Moreover, the federal government had proven incapable of raising an
army to quell the rebellion, so that Massachusetts had been forced to
raise its own.
In 1787, fifty-five delegates met at a Constitutional convention in Philadelphia and generated ideas of a bicameral legislature (United States Congress), balanced representation of small and large states (Great Compromise), and checks and balances. James Madison
stated in a long pre-convention memorandum to delegates that because
"one could hardly expect the state legislatures to take enlightened
views on national affairs", stronger central government was necessary. This convention almost immediately dropped its original mandate and instead set about constructing a new Constitution of the United States.
Once the convention concluded and released the Constitution for public
consumption, the Federalist movement became focused on getting the
Constitution ratified.
The most forceful defense of the new Constitution was The Federalist Papers,
a compilation of 85 anonymous essays published in New York City to
convince the people of the state to vote for ratification. These
articles, written by Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, with some contributed by John Jay,
examined the benefits of the new, proposed Constitution, and analyzed
the political theory and function behind the various articles of the
Constitution. The Federalist Papers remain one of the most important sets of documents in American history and political science.
Those opposed to the new Constitution became known as the Anti-Federalists.
They generally were local rather than cosmopolitan in perspective,
oriented to plantations and farms rather than commerce or finance, and
wanted strong state governments and a weak national government.
according to political scientist James Wilson]] the Antifederalists:
- were much more committed to strong states and a weak national government....A strong national government, they felt, would be distant from the people and would use its powers to annihilate or absorb the functions that properly belonged to the states. The Anti-Federalist critique soon centered on the absence of a bill of rights, which Federalists in the ratifying conventions promised to provide.
Because George Washington
lent his prestige to the Constitution and because of the ingenuity and
organizational skills of its proponents, the Constitution was ratified
by all the states. The outgoing Congress of the Confederation
scheduled elections for the new government, and set March 4, 1789 as
the date that the new government would take power. In 1789, Congress
submitted twelve articles of amendment to the states. Ten of these
articles, written by congressional committees, achieved passage on
December 15, 1791 and became the United States Bill of Rights. The Tenth Amendment set the guidelines for federalism in the United States.
Federalist Party
As soon as the first Federalist movement dissipated, a second one
sprang up to take its place. This one was based on the policies of
Alexander Hamilton and his allies for a stronger national government, a loose construction
of the Constitution, and a mercantile (rather than agricultural)
economy. As time progressed, the factions which adhered to these
policies organized themselves into the nation's first political party,
the Federalist Party, and the movement's focus and fortunes began to
track those of the party it spawned.
While the Federalist movement of the 1780s and the Federalist
Party were distinct entities, they were related in more than just a
common name. The Democratic-Republican Party,
the opposition to the Federalist Party, emphasized the fear that a
strong national government was a threat to the liberties of the people.
They stressed that the national debt
created by the new government would bankrupt the country, and that
federal bondholders were paid from taxes paid by honest farmers and
workingmen. These themes resonated with the Anti-Federalists, the
opposition to the Federalist movement of the 1780s. As Norman Risjord
has documented for Virginia, of the supporters of the Constitution in
1788, 69% joined the Federalist party, while nearly all (94%) of the
opponents joined the Republicans. 71% of Thomas Jefferson's
supporters in Virginia were former anti-federalists who continued to
fear centralized government, while only 29% had been proponents of the
Constitution a few years before. In short, nearly all of the opponents
of the Federalist movement became opponents of the Federalist Party.
The movement reached its zenith with the election of John Adams, an overtly Federalist President. However, with the defeat of Adams in the election of 1800 and the death of Hamilton,
the Federalist Party began a long decline from which it never
recovered. What finally finished off the Federalist party was the Hartford Convention of 1814, in which five New England
states gathered to discuss several constitutional amendments necessary
to protect New England's interests in regard to the blockade of their
ports by the British during the War of 1812. The threat of secession
also was proposed during these secret meetings. Three delegates were
sent to Washington, DC to negotiate New England's terms only to discover
the signing of the Treaty of Ghent, ending the war with the British. The Federalists were then seen by many as traitors to the union.
Federalism under the Marshall Court
The United States Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Marshall
played an important role in defining the power of the federal and state
governments during the early 19th century. As the U.S. Constitution does
not specifically define many dividing lines between the layers of
government, the Supreme Court settled the issue in New York. The
question was answered particularly in the cases, McCulloch v. Maryland and Gibbons v. Ogden, which broadly expanded the power of the national government.
Dual Federalism
Despite Chief Justice Marshall's strong push for the federal government, the court of his successor, Roger B. Taney
(1835–1864), decided cases that favored equally strong national and
state governments. The basic philosophy during this time was that the
U.S. Government ought to be limited to its enumerated powers and that all others belonged to the states. Both the sixteenth and the seventeenth amendment bolstered the power of the national government, and divided state and federal power.
Between Dual Federalism and the New Deal
Following the Taney court and the rise of Dual federalism,
the division of labor between federal, state, and local governments was
relatively unchanged for over a century. Political scientist Theodore J. Lowi summarized the system in place during those years in The End of the Republican Era.
Nevertheless, the modern federal apparatus owes its origins to
changes that occurred during the period between 1861 and 1933. While
banks had long been incorporated and regulated by the states, the National Bank Acts
of 1863 and 1864 saw Congress establish a network of national banks
that had their reserve requirements set by officials in Washington.
During World War I, a system of federal banks devoted to aiding farmers
was established, and a network of federal banks designed to promote home
ownership came into existence in the last year of Herbert Hoover's
administration. Congress used its power over interstate commerce to
regulate the rates of interstate (and eventually intrastate) railroads
and even regulated their stock issues and labor relations, going so far
as to enact a law regulating pay rates for railroad workers on the eve
of World War I. During the 1920s, Congress enacted laws bestowing
collective bargaining rights on employees of interstate railroads and
some observers dared to predict it would eventually bestow collective
bargaining rights on persons working in all industries. Congress also
used the commerce power to enact morals legislation, such as the Mann Act
of 1907 barring the transfer of women across state lines for immoral
purposes, even as the commerce power remained limited to interstate
transportation—it did not extend to what were viewed as intrastate
activities such as manufacturing and mining.
As early as 1913, there was talk of regulating stock exchanges,
and the Capital Issues Committee formed to control access to credit
during World War I recommended federal regulation of all stock issues
and exchanges shortly before it ceased operating in 1921. With the Morrill Land-Grant Acts
Congress used land sale revenues to make grants to the states for
colleges during the Civil War on the theory that land sale revenues
could be devoted to subjects beyond those listed in Article I, Section 8
of the Constitution. On several occasions during the 1880s, one house
of Congress or the other passed bills providing land sale revenues to
the states for the purpose of aiding primary schools. During the first
years of twentieth century, the endeavors funded with federal grants
multiplied, and Congress began using general revenues to fund them—thus
utilizing the general welfare clause's
broad spending power, even though it had been discredited for almost a
century (Hamilton's view that a broad spending power could be derived
from the clause had been all but abandoned by 1840).
During Herbert Hoover's administration, grants went to the states
for the purpose of funding poor relief. The Supreme Court began
applying the Bill of Rights to the states during the 1920s even though
the Fourteenth Amendment had not been represented as subjecting the
states to its provisions during the debates that preceded ratification
of it. The 1920s also saw Washington expand its role in domestic law
enforcement. Disaster relief for areas affected by floods or crop
failures dated from 1874, and these appropriations began to multiply
during the administration of Woodrow Wilson
(1913–21). By 1933, the precedents necessary for the federal government
to exercise broad regulatory power over all economic activity and spend
for any purpose it saw fit were almost all in place. Virtually all that
remained was for the will to be mustered in Congress and for the
Supreme Court to acquiesce.
