Liana on Federalism

Political Science 1

Exam 1

To completely understand how and why federalism works you have to know that there are 3 main branches of government. Legislative, makes the laws of the land, represented by two bodies, the House of Representatives and the Senate. Executive oversees the management of government, and Judiciary interprets the laws of the land as stated, or implied by the constitution.

Federalism is a way of organizing government so that power is divided between the national government and other governmental bodies, such as state governments. Because this method to check and balance power assigns each government its own powers, we also call this dual sovereignty. The reason for that is there can be no government that works for the people, and for the government unless it has self discipline and self control. As humans, we generally look out for our best interest, its human nature. Government is made up of humans and they are generally looking out for their best interests, they are politicians, it is in their nature. The people for the constitution were called Federalists, the people against the constitution were called Antifederalists, the Antifederalist party was for liberty opposed to democracy they believed that liberty could only be guaranteed in a small republic where the rulers were physically close to and closely examined by the people. They proposed limiting the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court.

The United States Federalist system is a democratic federal republic, meaning it is ideally a system where the people elect representatives who they expect are going to obey the mandate of the people they represent, regardless of their own personal beliefs, however they are free to act on their own, based on their own personal beliefs, conscience, or other factors, to do what they feel is right, because in 1790 the people were generally not educated and the representatives were picked as representatives because they were more aware. The system was good ideally, however, they gave the Supreme Court the ultimate power by leaving the constitution so vague. Alan Keyes a Republican said on September 11, 2003 that “Without the basis in written law, and without the basis in our Constitution ratified by the people, judges can't make laws. And if we accept the notion that their dictates are law, then we have not only submitted to tyranny, we have abandoned a republican form of government.” Federalism was set up so there would be no ultimate power no “one over many”, however that is exactly what we have, however when the founding fathers were creating our federalist system drawing from Aristotle, and John Locke, they had in mind, the president, being the head and drew up the constitution to not give that one man too much power.

Who really has all the power? The US Supreme court is a group of selected individuals, by the elected president, that serve for life and can only be removed by impeachment. We the people do not elect US Supreme Court justices. It is 2008, and most of Americans are literate, however our government doesn’t have enough faith in us to elect new Supreme Court justices, and even if we wanted to bring it up, we couldn’t because it would go straight to the Supreme Court. It almost looks as if the President is the temporary coach, the Supreme Court is the undefeated team and the Congress is the referee, as far as making the rules, not as far as making the calls. The team makes all the calls, we the people are the losing team. It looks as if the founders did want some form of a centralized government with more than one person in control, “many over many”. It really wouldn’t matter who is president because that is temporary, the Supreme Court is the leader of this country. Federalism set us up for that. There is no way to challenge the Supreme Court, it is the way it is, and there is nothing we, the people can do to change that.

The Constitution specifically grants certain powers to the national government, such as declaring war, negotiating treaties, and raising armies. Consequently it denies the states powers granted to the national government because if the states were allowed to engage in these actions it would weaken or undermine the national government. However, the boundary between national and state powers and responsibilities is sometimes unclear, because the constitution was created as a work in progress, the laws and times change. In the case McCulloch v. Maryland the state of Maryland sued a federal agency they believe has failed to live up to its responsibilities. This case relates generally with the dispersion of power between state and federal governments. After the First Bank of the United States had folded in 1811, due to a lack of congressional support, inflation in the years following the War of 1812 Congress established a new national bank in 1816. After a war there is always a recession or depression. The Second Bank of the United States was authorized by Congress to help control the unregulated issuance of currency by state banks. Maryland set an example opposing the banks constitutionality by imposing a tax on all banks not chartered by the state. When the U.S. branch bank in Baltimore refused to pay taxes, Maryland brought suit for collection from the bank. Chief Justice John Marshall, who wrote the overt opinion: “Let the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the constitution, and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist with the letter and spirit of the constitution, are constitutional.” The chartering of a bank, according to the Court, was a power implied from the power over federal fiscal operations. Maryland believed they were hit harder than any other state at that time, and as a state they believed they had the right to tax a federal agency. However, the tax was voted unconstitutional. One of the most important decisions in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court, Marshall's opinion called for a broad interpretation of the powers of the federal government. The case became the legal origin of later expansions of federal power.

Again, the boundary between national and state powers and responsibilities is sometimes blurred, because the constitution was created as a work in progress, the laws and times are all relative, nothing is absolute. In the case of Gibbons v. Ogden in 1824, John Marshall was still Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. This case refers to the commerce clause, and if the federal government had power over interstate commerce. Fulton and his partner, Robert Livingston, negotiated a deal where the New York State legislature would grant them an exclusive, long-term contract to operate and license all steam-powered vessels in the waters of New York. Aaron Ogden obtained a license from Livingston to operate steam-powered ferryboats that Fulton owned on the Hudson River between New York and New Jersey. Meanwhile, in New Jersey, Thomas Gibbons made his living carrying passengers by steamboat from the small town of Elizabethtown, New Jersey to New York City. Gibbons operated under a coasting license granted by the Federal Government, rather than under a license issued by either State. Gibbons had no New York license, so Ogden asked the New York courts to issue a ruling forbidding him landing rights to the port of New York. The New York courts issued the restriction. Gibbons appealed to the U.S. courts, arguing that his possession of a federal coasting license outdated the licensing requirements of New York State. The commerce clause; Article I, Section 8. Chief Justice John Marshall said ". . . Few things were better known, than the immediate causes which led to the adoption of the present constitution . . . that the prevailing motive was to regulate commerce; to rescue it from the embarrassing and destructive consequences, resulting from the legislation of so many different States, and to place it under the protection of a uniform law."

In the end, the flexibility created by our Constitution allows for a hardheaded response to the evolving challenges we face as a nation. It creates the chance for policy-makers to gauge whether problems are best confronted in town halls or state capitals or in Washington– or in some combination of all of them– and then to work together to assign each level of government its appropriate responsibility. That these tasks change over time is a sign not of weakness, but of the system's continuing strength.