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Federalism is marked by a sharing of power between the central government and state, provincial, or local governing bodies. The United States is one example of a federal republic. The U.S. Constitution grants specific powers to the national government while retaining other powers for the states.
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A high-level overview of the relationship between the states and the federal government.
Government in the United States is shared between local, state, and federal governments. The distribution of power between state and national governments has changed over time in response to societal needs.
The US Constitution: Articles IV and V of the US Constitution outline the federal system used in the United States today.
Article IV establishes that the states will give “full faith and credit” to the laws of other states. For example, if a citizen gets legally married in one state, he is still married if he moves to another state. Likewise, if a citizen commits a crime in one state, she cannot escape to another state and evade justice. States also can’t discriminate against citizens of other states if they move; any US citizen who moves to a state is entitled to the same “privileges and immunities” of citizenship in that state as someone born there.
Article IV also promises states the protection of the federal government. It does this by promising to defend states against invasion, guaranteeing them a republican form of government, and barring the federal government from splitting up a state without the consent of its legislature and Congress.
Article V describes the process of amending the Constitution, which requires the ratification of three-quarters of the states. This provision of the Constitution demonstrates the importance of the states in approving the workings of the US government.
Constitutional allocation of power: In addition to the separation of powers and system of checks and balances that guard against any one branch of the federal government becoming too powerful, federalism separates the powers of the federal and state governments as an added security measure to reign in government power. The federal system grants states large autonomy over lawmaking within their borders, so long as they do not violate citizens’ rights or contradict federal laws. The federal government is also able to assert power over the states through grants and mandates.
This system allows local state governments to be responsive to the particular needs of their citizens while binding the states together into a larger nation.
Name one power exclusive to the federal government and one power exclusive to state governments. Now, name two concurrent powers shared by both state governments and the federal government.
Why is the American system of government divided into three levels? What is the impact of the federal system on US policymaking?
Why are certain powers reserved to different levels of government? Can you make a generalization about the kinds of powers reserved to the federal government vs. the kinds of powers reserved to state governments?
[Notes and attributions]
The United States government gets its powers from the United States Constitution. The Constitution organizes the government into three separate and equal branches—legislative, executive, and judicial.
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Federalism is a pact between a national government and its states, with layers like a cake. In the U.S., it's more like a marble cake, with mixed and overlapping powers. Some powers are exclusive to the federal or state governments, while others are shared. This structure shapes how the U.S. operates.
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Key points. Federalism describes the system of shared governance between national and state governments. The states and the federal government have both exclusive and concurrent powers, which help to explain the negotiation over the balance of power between them.
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Introduction. When crafting the Constitution, one of the central concerns of the Founding generation was how best to control government power. With the new Constitution, the Framers looked to strike an important balance—creating a new national government that was more powerful than the one that came before it while still protecting the American people’s most cherished liberties.
Figure 3.2 There are three general systems of government—unitary systems, federations, and confederations—each of which allocates power differently. In a confederation, authority is decentralized, and the central government’s ability to act depends on the consent of the subnational governments.
