United States Government

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United States Government

The United States has a deeply rooted and embedded tradition through the Constitution of having a federalist style of governing as its structural framework for operating and guiding the government of the country. The form of governing is best described as a balance between powers of the central government and the powers of each independent and autonomic state. “Federalism is a system in which the power to govern is shared between national and provincial (state) governments, creating what is often called a federation” (Wikipedia 1).This style of governance has not been the only structure instituted in American history in order to implement civilized law and order among the people of the land. Prior to the adoption of the United States Constitution in 1787 the American people and their respective states were governed by the Articles of Confederation. This document, adopted in 1781 by the American colonies transforming them officially into independent states and as a country, provided the citizens of the new nation with their first experiment in independent liberty and organized government. In July 1776 The United Colonies needed to develop a new Confederation to declare war against England, this included ratification for all 13 states and became the first “Constitution” (Klos 1). As the title of this historic document suggests, the style of government provided the American people through the Articles of Confederation is that of a confederacy. A confederate government consists of independent states that have an overriding and unquestioned sovereign authority over their affairs. The type of political system the Founding Fathers of the United States severed their colonial connections to was that of a uni...

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...ticularly better in all cases than another. However, careful examination of the concepts and application of the confederacy, unitary, and federalism styles of government is vital to leading the world in a direction that brings ordered and civilized government to all countries.

Works Cited

www.archives.gov/.../document.html?...Articles%20of%20Confederation (accessed June 30, 2010).

www.pgcps.org/~croom2/Reading_Government%20Systems.doc (accessed Jun 30, 2010).

www.usconstitution.net/csa.html (accessed Jun 30, 2010).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/federalism 6 July 2006

Klobs, Stanley L. Articles Of Confederation November 15, 1777. 6 July 2010.

http://thedeclarationofindependence.org/articlesofconfederation.com/

Roskin, Michael G., Robert L. Cord, James A. Medeiros, and Walter S. Jones. Political Science: An

Introduction, 11th edition.

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