Anti Federalism

924 Words2 Pages

When the Constitution was created, the developers and opposers of the new government both felt that this new government needed to provide the people with shielding from the abuse of power of the federal government. Incorporated in the Constitution was three strategies to protect the citizens from misuse of control which consisted of the separation of powers, the Bill of Rights and federalism. These three approaches provide rights/freedoms to the people, limitations and balance of government. One of the strategies of the prevention of abuse by the government, which wasn 't exactly stated in the Constitution, but presented in Articles 1, 2 and 3 was the separation of powers(Lowi, Ginsberg, and Shepsle 44). The separation of powers involved
The anti federalist actually fought for these rights to be added to the Constitution in which the federalist was against. The federalist felt that the separation of powers and federalism protected the people from abuse of power. Anti federalist was against the Constitution and would only give approval if further protection was added to protect Americans from the federal government. The Bill of Rights consist of the first ten amendments of the Constitution and gave U.S. Citizens freedoms and rights, while placing limitations on the federal government. The Bill of Rights prevented the government from promoting one religion over another, from prohibiting press, carrying out illegal searches and procedures, pressuring to house military, prevention of being tried twice in the court of law, etc. It also helped to confirm our rights that were outside of the Bill of Rights. The last strategy to prevent abuse of power in the federal government is federalism. Although federalism was for a stronger national government, it did incorporate ways to prevent abuse of power of the federal government. The idea was to give extended power to the national government without reducing the effectiveness of the state government. The delegates then designed a system in which there were two self governing entities, which were the state and the nation. The hopes that competition between the two would be an effective limitation on the power of both(Lowi, Ginsberg, and Shepsle

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