Compare And Contrast Federalist Federal And Confederate Government

Jonathan Menke

1. Federalist, Unitary, and Confederate governments (compare and contrast)

Federalist- states have to obey the central government but are able to keep some power by making their own laws.

Unitary government - the central power is in control

Confederation- a group of individual states that are in an alliance, but the independent states each have more power than the central government

2. Supremacy clause

The supremacy clause is what says that the constitution, the national laws and the treaties override the states laws. These are the broad rules in which the smaller parts of the government must follow when creating their own laws

3. Tenth Amendment

The tenth amendment states that if the constitution does not ban a certain

Concurrent powers-powers shared by the federal government and state government an example would be both the federal government and the state government are able to tax citizens

5. Full faith and credit (give example)

If you drive to another state, the state that you drove to is required to honor your driver’s license. The states are also required to recognize any sort of official decision made by the courts in a different state

6. Extradition (give example)

If you were to commit a crime in one state and then travel to another state, if the state that you traveled to catches you they are required to return you back to the state that where you committed the crime. The place where you committed the crime is where you will be charged with the crime. If you commit murder in Texas and then go to another state. You will not be able to escape the death penalty because you will be tried where you committed the crime.

7. Privileges and immunities (give

They are able to because the privileges and immunities clause allows them to the same things as that citizens in the other states have. If I am in north Dakota and want to travel to south Dakota I am able to because the people in south Dakota are able to move around and travel to north Dakota. The privileges and immunities clause means that a person in one state is entitled to the same privileges as the people that live in another state when they are in that other state.

8. Dual vs. Cooperative federalism (give an example to illustrate each theory)

Dual federalism is when the states and the federal government are responsible for their own separate things. Both the federal government and the states have complete control over the areas they govern.

An example of this would be that the federal government has control over the military, foreign policy, our postal system and the monetary policies. The state government has the responsibility for the police/law enforcement, road building and the schools.

Cooperative federalism is more of a blurred line of responsibility between the state and federal government. An example of this would be in the days following the 911 attacks, the federal government asked the local/state governments to look into people they suspected of terrorist

9. Fiscal