In the United States, federalism 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 toward the national government. The progression of federalism includes dual, cooperative, and New Federalism.
Early federalism Federalism is a form of political organization that seeks to divide power between local states and the government, distributing different powers at different levels to allow a degree of political independence in an overarching structure. In the United States, federal republicanism became a political solution to the problems with the Articles of Confederation which gave little practical authority to the confederal government. For example, the Articles allowed the Congress of the Confederation 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 for federalism was greatly strengthened by the reaction to Shays' Rebellion of 1786–1787, where an armed uprising of yeoman farmers in western Massachusetts rose up in response by a poor economy that was created, in part, by the inability of the confederal government to deal effectively with the debt from the American Revolutionary War. The confederal government had trouble raising an effective force to quell the rebellion, and Massachusetts was forced to raise its own.
The Annapolis Convention met in 1786, in which twelve delegates from five U.S. states (New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virginia) gathered to discuss and develop a consensus on reversing the protectionist trade barriers that each state had erected. New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and North Carolina had appointed commissioners, but failed to arrive in Annapolis in time to attend the meeting. Connecticut, Maryland, South Carolina, and Georgia had taken no actions at all. The final report of the convention was adopted unanimously and sent to the Congress and to the states. It sought support for a broader constitutional convention to be held the following May in Philadelphia. It hoped that more states would be represented and that their delegates or deputies would be authorized to examine areas broader than simply commercial trade. On May 15, 1787, fifty-five delegates met at what would be known as the Constitutional Convention in the Philadelphia State House. There, the delegates debated the structure, provisions, and limitations of Federalism in what would be the Constitution of the United States.
Preceding examples, such as in the Virginia Declaration of Rights, influenced the delegates whilst framing ideas of Federal bicameral legislature, a balanced representation of small and large states (Great Compromise), and a structure of checks and balances. James Madison stated in a pre-convention memorandum to the delegates that because "one could hardly expect the state legislatures to take enlightened views on national affairs", a stronger central government was necessary. Madison later wrote in Federalist No. 10 on his support for a federal government:
The convention had begun altering its original plan but then decided to abandon continued efforts of emendation, and officially set about constructing a new Constitution of the United States. This new Constitution would eventually be ratified in all states. Once the convention concluded and released the Constitution for public consumption, the Federalist and Anti-Federalist movements soon began publicizing their disagreeing beliefs in local newspapers and segments.
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 important in American history and political science.Jackson, Kenneth T. The Encyclopedia of New York City: The New York Historical Society; Yale University Press; 1995. p. 194.Amar, Akhil Reed, Anti-Federalists, the Federalist Papers, and the Big Argument for Union, 16. Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol'y 111 (1993).
Anti-Federalists, who were opposed to the new Constitution, were generally 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 Anti-Federalists "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. Washington and Madison had personally pledged to consider amendments, realizing that they would be necessary to reduce pressure for a second constitutional convention that might drastically alter and weaken the new federal government. Madison proposed amendments that gave more rights to individuals than to states, which led to criticisms of diversion by Anti-Federalists.
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, the new Congress of the United States 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
After the first federalist movement achieved its aims in promoting the Constitution, an official Federalist Party emerged with slightly different aims. 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 Jeffersonian or 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 through taxes collected from 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. However, James Madison, who was one of the strongest proponents of the Constitution and a member of the first federalist movement, became a Jeffersonian, while some who were Anti-Federalists prior to the ratification of the Constitution, such as Patrick Henry, became supportive 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.War of 1812 Sparknotes.com Across the nation, Republicans used the great victory at New Orleans to ridicule the Federalists as cowards or defeatists. The Federalists were thereafter associated with the disloyalty and parochialism of the Hartford Convention and destroyed as a political force.
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, in which the court unanimously found that the states could not tax a federal institution that was deemed legitimate and appropriate, Gibbons v. Ogden, in which Congress was confirmed control of interstate commerce under the commerce clause instead of the states, and Marbury v. Madison, which broadly expanded the power of the national government. A notable instance in which the Marshall Court empowered the states under federalism was in that of Barron v. Baltimore, a case which resulted in Marshall's court unanimously concluding that the 5th amendment only applied to the federal government and not the states.
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. Any powers that were not granted to the U. S. Government by the Constitution were handed over to the states through the Tenth Amendment. Dual federalism had a significant impact on social issues in the United States. Dred Scott v. Sanford was an example of how Taney's dual federalism helped stir up tensions eventually leading to the outbreak of the Civil War. Another example of dual federalism's social impact was in the Plessy v. Ferguson ruling. Dual federalism had set up that the U.S. Government could not legislate on moral issues. It was an issue that had to be decided by the states, and thus "separate but equal" could exist. Lastly, near the end of dual federalism's lifespan, both the Sixteenth and the Seventeenth Amendment bolstered the power of the national government, and divided state and federal power (Fuad Nor, 1977).
Between dual federalism and the New Deal