Federalism: What It Is and How It Came to Be

Table of Contents

Introduction
Dual federalism
Cooperative federalism,
Work Cited

Introduction

While creative attempts have been made to outline the origin of federalism back into ancient times, the constitution of the United States (1787) is one of the initial cases of any contemporary federal structure. The likelihood of setting up a federal blending amid the other North American countries that were British colonies was deemed intermittently in the early 19th century, and even more critically from 1857 and beyond. Concessions between political principals from different areas such as New Brunswick, the province of Canada, and Nova Scotia later effected in the royally Parliaments acceptance of the British North America Act, which enable the unification of the three colonies into one federal government in the year 1867.

It should be noted that there is an addition of other two major systems of government in the todays world. The one which is regarded to be the most common is the unitary government system. In this system of government, power is at the state level, with only a small portion of power that is held in the other political sectors, such as counties, towns, provinces and parishes. The other one is the confederation system of governance which is considered to be the least common. This system comprises state unions, with various powers that are being held at the top level. In general, the confederation system broke down due to different conflicting interests in governance. (Jennifer, pg. 52-66).

The question is; is there a possibility that one system is better than the other? But this should be a matter individual of opinion. It would be appropriate to say that each of these systems has its advantages and disadvantages, and for that reason, the option for which system to implement in any nation will depend on its people, the nation itself and its political sectors. USA was a succession of colonies that were under the so-called British unitary system; after its independence from the British, the US then turned to a confederation system that was determined under the confederation laws; it was after the confederation system turned to be unsuccessful when the US changed its system into a federal system through the Constitution (Robert, pg. 125-133).

There are several reasons why Federal systems are preferred and they include; (a) the size of the nation and (b) the assortment of the political sectors. US combine some specks of both: its due to the size of the continental USA that made a unitary government system awkward and the assorted concerns of the different states in the USA made confederation impracticable. Other countries such as Switzerland have their populace split by language, and regardless of its petite size, it found the federalism system of governance to be an enhanced choice. (Jennifer, pg 52-66)

A country like China despite being a very large and extremely assorted country seems to be doing fine with the unitary system because it suits its political principles. Nevertheless, socialism does not need the unitary governance system and a good example is the former USSR which was a federation, in its internal organization.

In the US federalism has managed to evolve somehow since its first implementation in the year 1787. At that moment in time, two main types of federalism were governing the political theories and they include:

Dual federalism

This entails that the state governments and federal governments are equal in terms of sovereignty. Also in dual federalism, some fractions of the national Constitution are interpreted very intently, an example is the Supremacy article, Commerce Cap, the Necessary and Proper article, and the tenth Constitutional Amendment. Through this constricted constitutional interpretation, the said federal regime has control if only the Constitution evidently states so. And it is for this reason that there are vast powers given to the states, while the federal regime is partial to only the powers clearly stated in the Constitution (Robert, pg. 125-133).

Cooperative federalism,

This type of federalism shows that the national government has greater supremacy than the states, while the primacy article, tenth Amendment, the Commerce article and the Necessary and Proper article have totally diverse connotations. An example of the wider understanding of these sections of the Constitution is shown by the Proper and Necessary Clauses other general name the Elastic article. It should be noted that this concept of Dual federalism has not entirely diminished even though many parts of the USs government branches function under the conjecture of cooperative federalism. This change from dual to cooperative federalism was slow, but also stable (Ronald, pp. 146-147).

An instance of the earliest shift was in the case in the Supreme Court of Gibbons vs. Ogden verdict, that passed its ruling in 1824 that the USs Congress privileges to control trade under the Commerce article could be implemented to its supreme level, and allows for no restraints, other than those stipulated in the US constitution. It was later on in the 1930s when the wave of social injustice started to sway into the nation as the Depression started. It was at this time when the Federal legislations that dealt with civil liberties, labor and civil rights, started to take on a different perspective.

It was after these amendments to the Constitution when the laws were changed and they took away a lot of powers that were enjoyed in different states, such as the ability to extensively deny the rights to vote or the power to depict political districts at the notion of political party leaders. Some advocated for the return to an emphasis on dual federalism as a bringing of power to an administration that was closer to the citizens, and thus under enhanced popular governance. Even though there were people who advocated for this, there were still some problems in many states during the Reagan era.

The then presidents Reagan was one of the advocates of states rights and during his tenure, he craved to bring back to the state the many powers that were taken by the federal government. It was then realized that this system of governance brought about bureaucracy reason being that each of the fifty states in the US had to set up offices to manage programs that the federal government had handed over. To make matters even worse, the transition was regularly not funded and this meant that the charges of the programs were to be moved to the states. But federal income taxes were not lessened appropriately, which led to greater tax loads on the citizens as states were to raise taxes to fund these programs (Robert, pg. 125-133).

Even though there is an appeal for cooperative federalism, there is also a continuing call to a degree of dual federalism. When the then US president Bill Clinton tried to pass the national health care schemes and failed is one of the good instances of part of politics that the citizens feel is best held closely, despite the benefits of a national system. Apart from this type of federalism, the current US Constitution does give various detailed powers to both the federal government and the states. The powers are usually separated into three groups which are:

Reserved powers: these are the powers that are specifically reserved for the states or even are of a conventional state scope. They comprise mostly the police powers which include things like police protection, providing firearms, the creating of health bylaws, education and licensing (Ronald, pp. 146-147).
Granted powers: they are also referred to as enumerated, express, delegated, implied or intrinsic powers and they are those which are specifically provided in Article One, Section Eight, and they include things such as the power to; raise an army and navy, to set up a post office, to coin money, to provide for copyright protection and to make accords and declare war with other countries. Delegated, express, or detailed powers are those powers expressly listed; while intrinsic or implied powers are those which subsist to undertake an enumerated or express power. For instance, the US Congress can decide to come up with armed forces; this entails the powers to spell out regulations that depict who can join the army (Ronald, pp. 146-147).
(Concurrent powers: these are those powers that are held to some degree by the state governments and the federal government. A good example is that both the state and federal governments have powers to collect taxes, the duty to build and maintain roads and other infrastructures and also the duty to control another spending for the public welfare (Ronald, pp. 136-140).

Some powers are denied on both these government structures. For instance, the States government has no rights to wage war or coin money nor can it pass any bill of attainder or even pass any ex post facto laws. Some parts of the Bill of Rights put in effect constraints to both federal and the states government, while the entire Bill of Rights gives limits to the federal government. It should be noted that the Bill of Rights at first had no effect of constraints on the states but the judicial version of the fourteenth Amendments article has included much of the endorsing of civil rights to the states. And for the federal government to be managed effectively these constraints have to be revised.