Pros And Cons Of Superior State Government

Superior State Government The Federal Government has exceeded its authority. The government of the United States is defined by the Constitution, a document adopted in 1789 with the goal of liberty. For Americans to be free, the authors of the Constitution placed clearly defined limits on the role of the central authority. Today, however, the Federal Government has disregarded these limits and stripped power from the states. As directed by the tenth amendment, any power not directly delegated to the national government shall be given to the state governments. Nonetheless, the expanding power of Washington D.C. ignores the tenth amendment. States are not only legally entitled to the powers not given to the Federal Government, but states are

As with marriage, the Constitution does not include judicial review in the expressed powers. Actually, the Supreme Court gave this power to itself under the rule of Chief Justice John Marshall, who established this power for the Supreme Court in the case of Marbury v. Madison. Indeed, Article III, Section II of the Constitution gives the Supreme Court authority in “all cases….. arising under this Constitution” (U.S. Const. art. III, sec. 2) However, this means that the Supreme Court may rule on how the Constitution is to be applied during Constitutional disagreements over the document’s interpretation, but not to take an existing law in effect and make a final decision on its Constitutionality. For example, the Supreme Court does have the power given by the Constitution to settle a dispute by applying Constitutional law, but the court does not have the power to decide that an existing law violates the Constitution, invalidating that law. That power lies with the states, once again seeing that the tenth amendment gives any power not given to the United States central government to the

The only reason the United States exists is because sovereign states under the Articles of Confederation ratified the Constitution, essentially meaning the states created the Federal Government, and as as a creation of the states, the state governments are thereby the superior governmental power. Therefore, the power of deciding the constitutionality of federal law lies with the creator, the states. It is a duty of the states to limit the power of central authority and “limit the scope of the Federal Government” (Hart). Subsequently, the states may accomplish this through judicial review. Finally allowing the states to “renew the limits on federal power that the Framers intended the original Constitution to impose” (Jeffrey). Naturally, the federal authority can not interpret the document that created it, but instead appeal for interpretation to the state legislatures that agreed to implement the