Federalism Dbq

The framers of the Constitution established a federal form of government to provide for a central government which could overcome the failures of the Articles of Confederation. This new federal government lets states retain many of their powers, while simultaneously creating a strong central government, thus essentially creating two governments which run side by side: the state governments and the federal government. The need for a divided government was validated by the armed uprising known as Shay’s Rebellion. After the Revolutionary War, America’s economy was all but destroyed, and many veterans who fought in the war came home to massive debts and crushing economic policies. Because the Articles did not give the central government the power to tax, they could not afford to pay them, causing them to rebel. Without the ability to tax citizens in addition to several other flaws in the Articles, it was

In Federalist 71, James Madison said that ambition must be made to counteract ambition. This idea certainly applies to federalism, as each government’s trek for power limits the other’s power. For example, Madison argued in Federalist 45 that in Article 2 Section 2, state legislators still had power over the federal government because it is state legislators that select the electoral college, which in turn selects the president, and because the Senate originally was elected by state legislators. States then control who makes the national laws and who enforces them. At the same time, the supremacy clause in Article 6 forces states to obey federal laws, as ruled in Cooper v. Aaron where the Supreme Court upheld that Arkansas had to obey the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown v. Board of Education and desegregate schools. This case affirmed that states are bound to federal courts and that they cannot nullify a federal