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American Government And Politics: Deliberation, Democracy, And Citizenship

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In American Government and Politics: Deliberation, Democracy, and Citizenship, Professors Joseph Bessette and John Pitney describe a federal system of government as “a political system in which a national government shares powers with states or provinces. Each level has definite powers and may act directly on individuals within its jurisdiction.” This new form of government was a fabrication of the founding generation. It originated from both the fear of unitary government and the disappointment in the confederal system created by the Articles of Confederation, and thus it demanded a certain balance when granting power to the different spheres of government. The founding generation gave the federal government far more power than it had under the Articles of Confederation. Now, the federal government maintained enumerated and granted powers: Congress was now allowed to coin money, raise and army, and tax …show more content…

Though the reserved powers supposedly gave the states the responsibility to deal with everything not given to the federal government, the federal government had also gained powers that the framers implicitly gifted it. The Marshall Court believed that the ‘Necessary and Proper Clause’, or the part of the Constitution which “empowers the Congress to make all laws ‘necessary and proper ‘ in order to carry out the federal government’s duties” enabled the federal government to claim these powers. This was the balancing act of Federalism, the national government had to be given enough power to be effective but not too much to be

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In the early years, after winning independence from Great Britain, the American colonies set up their government in accordance with their first constitution, the Articles of Confederation. This means that the majority of the power laid in the hands of the states and Congress, “the only institution of national authority” (Brinkley 151) at that time, had very little power. This distribution of authority was the manifestation of the American’s fear of a strong, central government. However, as time passed, more and more people came to agree that the national government was too weak and needed to be strengthened.

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After the failure of the articles of confederation, due to various problems of having a limited national government, the national government sought to write up a new basis for government. The writers of the constitution expanded the strength of the national government, giving them various enumerated powers, to make the national government have more authority over the states to impose order. In addition to the enumerated powers of congress, to avoid limiting the national government to what is in the constitution, Article 1 of the constitution also includes the “necessary and proper” clause which gives congress the ability “to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing [enumerated] powers” (Article

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1159 Words | 5 Pages

DBQ Essay The United States Constitution is a document that or founding fathers made in order to replace the failing Articles of Confederation (A of C). Under the Constitution, the current government and states don’t have the problems they faced when the A of C was in action. The Constitution was created in 1788, and held an idea that the whole nation was nervous about. This idea was a strong national government, and the Federalist assured the people that this new government would work. The framers of the Constitution decided to give more power to the Federal government rather than the state governments because the A of C had many problems, there was a need for the layout of new government, rights, and laws, and there was a need for the Federal

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784 Words | 4 Pages

It is 1787, and the Framers of the Constitution have a daunting decision to make. The United States of America is a free nation, but a new system of government needs to be established. The first attempt has already failed; the Articles of Confederation has proven to be too weak to govern the nation and deal with its problems. This new government should be strong enough to rule over all the States while allowing each of the States to maintain sovereignty. Eventually, the Framers decide on a federal government, which divides power between the central government and regional governments.

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569 Words | 3 Pages

After the American Revolution, the colonies needed to reconstruct a new, fresh government. America, however, was extremely restrictive with giving the central government any forms of power after the hardships the colonies faced being under the British government and Parliament. The colonies did not want to undergo another period of unfair taxation and regulated systems. Thus, America’s first government, The Articles of Confederation, gave the central government immensely few granted powers. After an eight year period, the majority of America knew that they needed a new form of government.

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763 Words | 4 Pages

In Federalist 51 Madison states, “It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part.” Americans believed that power that is not given is power that cannot be misused. Now the different branches have control over different parts of how our government works. There are areas of specialty, a shared power. This is the basis of which a federal system is run because the power is shared and divided.

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The founding father’s idea when they created the Constitution was to prevent a centralized government. As expressed by James Madison in Federalist No. 51, they believe that the power surrendered by people would be divided between the federal and state governments, creating balance of power that would enable both governments to control each other. Over time, the balance of power between the federal and state governments has shifted in favor of the federal government and this has taken place with the help of the Constitution and by enactments of Congress. The role that Chief Justice John Marshall played in defining the power of the federal and state governments during the early 19th century is important to mention because he shaped the nation.

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And the Constitution heavily regarded federalism: The federal and states governments’ roles Were finally delineated in order to limit The power of government,

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The Constitution designated certain powers to the federal government, such as the ability to levy and collect taxes from individuals and the power to raise an army. Under the new rule of the

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Naturally, they had tried to avoid the problems they had with the Articles of Confederation and so they structured the Constitution differently. Instead of letting state governments to have all the power while the national government was left to be weak, the Constitution tried to balance it out and worked more as a federalist system. Now the national government was finally able to establish an executive branch, along with a judicial branch. The power to tax and regulate interstate commerce were given the national government this time (Module 2.2). The Article VI had allowed national government to have jurisdiction over states in that “national laws and treaties “shall be the supreme Law of the Land” and superior to all laws adopted by any state or any subdivision.”

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Each state that originally operated individually in governmental terms now had the right to speak for themselves in a Continental Congressional setting, which rather than having a president operated with representatives from each state, in which each had an equal voice in the country’s actions such as military actions, foreign affairs, and political motives. The Articles of Confederation possessed many of the governmental powers and limited much of the state’s previously owned rights, although the state’s governments did not become completely powerless. While the Continental Congress became possessive of many governmental powers, the states still individually possessed the rights to levy taxes, draft state military soldiers, and regulate trade within their own state. Although many states, as it would seem, would come to abuse these powers. In this sense, the Articles of Confederation did favor the individual rights of each state by granting rights for their possession apart from the central government’s

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266 Words | 2 Pages

While some Americans thought the Articles of Confederation was good since it waged in a successful war for independence, many Americans concluded that under the Articles of Confederation, there were many issues formed such as providing limited central government, developing many economic problems, and foreign powers. “The framers of the Articles of Confederation kept in mind their complaint against Britain. Parliament had passed laws the colonists considered unfair. The new states did not want to risk giving too much power to a central government far from the people”(Pearson, 206). This shows how the Articles provided a limited central government that lead many Americans to disagree with the Articles of Confederation.

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1823 Words | 8 Pages

This country was founded with the attempt to separate the federal government and the state government, known as federalism. The goal of federalism is to divide the power of state and federal governments, protect the rights of the state, and prevent tyranny of the majority. Throughout the years, federalism turned into dual federalism where the state and federal government were completely independent of each other and only shared a dependency on the Constitution. The united states suppressing now to cooperative federalism, the national government has assumed even more power, overruling the states with Supreme Court decisions and actions, and executive Orders. Furthermore, the Federal government should grant their state governments more power, due to the connection the state governments hold with their local people.

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586 Words | 3 Pages

It was very essential for the united states of America to come up with the federal system of government. There were a number of reasons for this effect, among which included fear for the power centralization in the American political system. Also, this kind of government was considered appropriate because of the size of the united states as a country. Alexander, & Alexander, (2005) argue that federal governments are usually proper in large countries like the united states because there are very many people and a diverse group of individuals. As such, these groups of people may also have needs that are diverse which could as well mean a common culture that put them together.

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441 Words | 2 Pages

“Fear is not real. The only place that fear can exist is in our thought of the future. It is a production of our imagination, causing us to fear things that do not at present and may not ever exist. That is near insanity”-Will Smith. I believe that change is inevitable.

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