American Federalism Papers

Federalism Federalism is a governmental principle that has taken over the United States government. This system of government is the process by which two or more governments share a power over the same geographic area. The Constitution divides the country’s power into a national government as being the highest power, and then still recognizing the powers that belong to the American people. Federalism has been changing in America ever since it was adopted with the Constitution until today. American federalism, has changed the country into a unified country with checks and balances between the people and the government. The Supreme Court has played a role in the introduction of the American federalism as well, cases like United States v. Lopez,

A federalist government has three main ideas and rules for it to be successful. Essentially, a federalist government needs to be over one land mass or territory and the same population of people. Next, there needs to be a source of authority and power for each section of government. Finally, the last regulation is that neither levels of government can abolish each other. A federalist government works for America because the states are constantly going to be fighting for so much power over each other and this helps them not gain the power. Federalism is used for larger and more populated countries, because they have more diverse and cultural needs. That is another reason federalism in American has worked positively. American Federalism has really adopted democracy with the way leaders are voted in for the governmental powers. There was also an established election process where the people vote for the leaders of the national government as well as state. The United States has been a federalist government since the Constitution was signed. In the United states, the government is split into a state and national government, with checks and

This stage was when national government started regulating the state governments.It was the stage the national government started to pull back some power from the states. The national government was threatening the state government to withhold federal grants, if they did not agree with the national government decisions. In this stage, categorical grants were given to the states for specific purposes. For example, categorical grants are regulating speed limits and try to tackle the war of poverty. Finally there is stage four; New Federalism (1981- Today). This stage is called this because it starts to return administrative powers back to the state government. Block grants were introduced, these grants helped the states have the power and discretion on how funds are being spent. Ronald Reagan, in the 1980s, proposed this idea of the stronger federal-state government relationship. This stage worked on the reduction the power and size of the federal