Communalism Vs Anti Federalism

Federalism is simultaneously one of the most foundational and perplexing constitutional principles of American democracy because of its intentional ambiguity. The debate over federalism has persisted from the framers to the current day policymakers. However, the terms on which the debate has played out have changed over time. The intentional ambiguity placed in the Constitution by the framers has directly contributed to the abuse of federalism and the decline in the power of the states. Therefore, the concerns of the Anti-federalists have come to fruition as history has progressed. Federalism revolves around the fundamental concept of competing views of sovereignty, the balance between subnational and national powers. Specifically, federalism

Robertson states, “Sherman had strong intellectual differences with Madison and aimed to achieve a much narrower agenda of reform. He advocated as much directly, equal-state agency in national policy-making as feasible, as little nationalization of public goods as necessary, and as much state control of everyday economic management as possible. While he also supported certain stronger national powers, Sherman preferred that the scope of national authority should be expanded in a much more limited and specific ways. No one argued earlier and more forcefully against the conventional wisdom that sovereignty could not be divided.” As a result, how much power the individual states should get in the national government was the largest point of disagree and debate between Richard Sherman and James Madison. However, the final product of the debates between Sherman and Madison, the Constitution, was not everything Sherman wanted. In other words, the dual-sovereignty and the concept of a state’s political existence in the national government, Sherman’s most important demands, were settled in an extremely vague way. The Constitution outlined perpetual ambiguity

Prior to this nationalization of the 14th Amendment, the states and national government were on more of an even playing field on power over civil rights. Plessy vs. Ferguson, in 1896, is an example of not only the lack of civil rights, but also the lack nationalizing the Bill of Rights. The Supreme Court justified “separate but equal” facilities and a distinction on the basis of race. In other words, they “respected” the state of Louisiana’s sovereignty over civil rights policy. However, this all changed in 1954 with Brown vs. Board of Education. This case forever changed the shape of federalism in civil rights. The Supreme Court surmounted state laws and struck down the “separate but equal” idea from Plessy vs. Ferguson. Therefore, both civil rights and racial inequality policy were taken from the states, shifting the balance of power even further toward the national