Do Now:
Grab today’s Agenda (3:4).
What do you think should be the role of the federal government in
education? State governments?
Evolution of Federalism (Part I)
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Dual Federalism
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From Dual to Cooperative
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Cooperative Federalism
Dual Federalism (1789-1930s)
“Layer Cake Federalism”
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Dual federalism is a form of federalism in which states
and the national government each remain supreme
within their own spheres.
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It involves clearly enumerated powers between the
national and state governments and sovereignty in equal
spheres.
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Constitution outlines for two types of government in the
U.S.:
 National government dealt with national defense, foreign
policy, and fostering commerce.
 States dealt with local matters, economic regulations, and
criminal law.
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Like a layer cake, states and national governments each
had their own distinct areas of responsibilities, and the
different levels rarely overlapped.
Dual Federalism (1789-1930s)
Challenges
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The view of American federalism that held sway from the founding period through the first third of the 20 th
century was dual federalism.
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During the nation’s early history, and, to a lesser extent, throughout the nation’s history, dual federalism had
two challenges”
 Nation-centered federalism
 Championed by a long series of American statesmen including Hamilton, Marshall, Clay, and Lincoln.
 The fundamental idea was that the nation preexisted the states and in fact called the states into existence in
June of 1776 when the Continental Congress instructed the colonies to sever ties to England.
 State-centered federalism
 Championed by Jefferson, Calhoun, and Jefferson Davis
 The belief that the states preexisted the nation and created it by compact among themselves.
 The original parties to the compact, that is, the individual states, could secede from the Union if the national
government violated the compact by encroaching upon the sovereign prerogatives of the states.
 Short of cession, states could nullify, or declare unenforceable, federal law they believed fell outside
Congress’ Article I, Section 8 enumerated powers.
Dual Federalism (1789-1930s)
Tenth Amendment
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The national government can only operate within its
appropriate sphere and cannot usurp the state’s
powers.
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The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution guaranteed
rights to the states and is the source of their reserved
powers. It gives states those powers that are not
delegated to the national government, nor prohibited to
the states.
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By giving state governments extended rights and
powers, the Tenth Amendment profoundly affected the
nature of federalism. It helped generate the concept of
dual federalism by creating a government where the
national government and the state governments share
power and have separate spheres of influence.
Dual Federalism (1789-1930s)
Supremacy
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As early as 1791, a federal court declared a Rhode Island state law unconstitutional, and in
1803 Chief Justice John Marshall, in the famous case of Marbury v. Madison, declared a
section of an act of Congress, the Judiciary Act of 1789, to be unconstitutional. The broad
result of the case established the Supreme Court as the final arbiter of what is and is not
constitutional, and, hence, of the meaning, shape, and boundaries of American federalism.
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The importance of the Supreme Court’s role as arbiter of the meaning of the Constitution
was highlighted by the Court’s 1819 ruling in McCulloch v. Maryland.
 The issue in McCulloch, whether Congress could legitimately charter a bank, permitted
the Court to interpret the powers of Congress broadly and to limit state interference with
them.
 This expansive interpretation of national power came at the expense of the 10th
Amendment’s “reserved powers” of the state.
Dual Federalism (1789-1930s)
Supremacy
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A third decision completed Chief Justice Marshall’s attempt to embed the nation-centered
vision of federalism in the Constitution. The 1824 case of Gibbons v. Ogden dealt with the
regulation of interstate commerce.
 While the Court’s interpretation of the commerce clause may seem arcane, even boring, it
has been absolutely central to the expansion of congressional power form Chief Justice
Marshall’s day to our own day.
 In fact, the broad interpretation of Congress’ commerce power, just as much as the
necessary and proper clause, has fueled and legitimated the expansion of national power
in our federal system.
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These decisions laid the foundation for the triumph of national federalism, thought it would
be another century before the structure was fully built.
From Dual to Cooperative
Nullification Doctrine
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Part of the disputes that led to the Civil War (1861-1865) concerned federalism.
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Many Southerners felt that state governments alone had the right to make
important decisions, such as whether slavery should be legal. Advocates of
states’ rights believed that the individual state governments had power over
the federal government because the states had ratified the Constitution to
create the federal government in the first place.
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The Nullification Doctrine is a legal theory that has the right to nullify, or
invalidate, any federal law which that state has deemed unconstitutional.
 This theory has been rejected repeatedly by the courts, and it has never been
legally upheld.
 Based on the view that the States formed the Union by an agreement among
the States, and that as creators of the federal government, the states have the
final authority to determine the limits of the power of that government.
 So the states and not the federal courts are the ultimate interpreters of the
extent of the federal government’s powers.
From Dual to Cooperative
The Civil War
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Upon John Marshall’s death in 1835, President Andrew Jackson named Roger B. Taney to be the
new chief justice, an office he held until 1863. Chief Justice Taney was a strong advocate of statecentered federalism and of a limited national government.
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A stronger advocate still was South Carolina Senator John C. Calhoun. Senator Calhoun, convinced
that the south was threatened by an overbearing northern majority, proposed “the doctrine of the
concurrent majority,” whereby each major region would have the right to veto national laws that
threatened their fundamental interests. If the South was denied such security, Calhoun argued that
the sovereign states could nullify illegitimate national laws and, as a last resort, secede from the
Union.
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Chief Justice Taney’s most infamous opinion was Dred Scott v. Sanford in 1857. He held that
Congress had no right to prohibit a slave owner from taking his property, even his human property,
into any state in the Union, even a free state, and holding that slave as property.
From Dual to Cooperative
The Civil War
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The next year, in the Illinois Senate elections of 1858, Senator Stephen A. Douglas argued that the
deep American commitment to “popular sovereignty” meant that the citizens of individual states
should be able to vote for or against slavery. Douglas’ opponent, then a little-known former
congressman named Abraham Lincoln, argued for the right of the national government to limit
slavery in those states where it currently existed. Lincoln lost.
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The strong arguments by Taney and Douglas in favor of an expansive view of states’ rights and statecentered federalism helped set the stage for the Civil War. Northern opinion mobilized against the
expansion of slavery and Lincoln rode that mobilization to the presidency in the election of 1860.
The South seceded, the North resisted, and America went to war with itself over the nature of its
federal Union.
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Most southern states eventually seceded from the Union because they felt that secession was the
only way to protect their rights. But Abraham Lincoln and many northerners held that the Union
could not be dissolved.
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The Union victory solidified the federal government’s power over the states and ended the debate
over states’ rights.
From Dual to Cooperative
14th Amendment
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The 14th Amendment (1868), includes three key
clauses, which limit state powers and protect the
basic rights of citizens:
 The privileges and immunities clause declares
that no state can deny any citizen the privileges
and immunities of American citizenship.
 The due process clause limits stats’ abilities to
deprive citizens of their legal rights.
 The equal protection clause declares that all
people get the equal protection of the laws.
From Dual to Cooperative
Industrialization and Globalization
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The nature of government and politics in the United States changed
dramatically in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The national
government assumed a larger role as a result of industrialization and
globalization.
 Industrialization
 The economy became a national, industrial economy, and the
federal government was much better equipped than the states to
deal with this change.
 For much of the 19th century, the government pursued a handsoff, laissez-faire economic policy, but it began to take a stronger
regulatory role in the early 20th century.
 Globalization
 Because of its vast economy and its extensive trading networks,
the United States emerged as a global economic power.
 The federal government assumed a greater economic role as
American businesses and states began trading abroad heavily.
From Dual to Cooperative
Industrialization and Globalization
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Social change in American between the elections of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 and Franklin Roosevelt
in 1932 was massive. During this period, the nation went from one mostly of small towns and
isolated farms to one of burgeoning cities and large-scale industry.
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More important, the nation was bound ever more tightly into a web of commerce and communication
that seemed to demand tending above the levels of states and communities.
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As the web of commerce expanded over the course of the 19 th century and into the 20th century,
debate raged over the reach of congressional power channeled through the Constitution’s commerce
clause.
From Dual to Cooperative
Industrialization and Globalization
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Consider two related developments: the rise of the railroads and the telegraph:
 Prior to the arrival of railroads and the telegraph, businesses were local or at most regional. The size of a
business was determined by the distance over which finished products could be distributed efficiently by wagon,
barge, or boat.
 After the telegraph made it possible to order and advertise over long distances and railroads made it possible to
deliver products quickly over long distances, businesses expanded rapidly.
 By the last decades of the 19th century, huge monopolies or trusts in basic service and product lines like
banking, railroads, and communications, steel, oil, and sugar dominated the nation’s business landscape.
 How could states, let alone localities, control and regulate a railroad that stretched across half a dozen states, or
a steel, sugar, or tobacco trust that did business in every state in the Union? They simply could not.
 Yet, the Supreme Court declared in U.S. v. E.C. Knight (1895) that Congress’ power to regulate interstate
commerce did not reach manufacturing or production, only the transportation of goods across state lines.
 Hence, as the 20th century dawned, the nation’s largest businesses were beyond the reach of congressional
regulation and control. Although the Progressive Era administration of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow
Wilson did establish a beachhead for the regulatory authority of government, the Roaring 20s saw a return to
laissez faire. Not until Franklin Roosevelt rose to confront the Great Depression did the balance of American
federalism begin a decisive shift of responsibility and authority to the national level.
From Dual to Cooperative
The Great Depression
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Although these events played out over many decades, they
reached their high point during the presidency of Franklin
Roosevelt (1933-1945).
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The Great Depression, brought about by the crash of the
stock markets in 1929, was one of the most severe economic
downturns in American history.
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Many businesses failed, roughly one-third of the population
was out of work, and poverty was widespread.
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In response, Roosevelt implemented the New Deal, a series of programs and policies that attempted
to revive the economy and prevent further depression.
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The New Deal included increased regulation of banking and commerce, and implemented programs to
alleviate poverty, including the formation of the Works Progress Administration and a social security
plan.
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In order to implement these programs, the national government had to grow dramatically, which
consequently took power away from the states.
Cooperative Federalism (1930s-1960s)
“Marble Cake Federalism”
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Cooperative federalism is a form of
federalism with mingled
responsibilities and blurred
distinctions between the levels of
government.
Cooperative Federalism (1930s-1960s)
A National Emergency
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In the early years of the 20th century, state and local governments accounted for about 70% of total
government spending in the United States, whereas the federal government accounted for about 30%.
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However, in 1913, President Wilson proposed and the Congress passed the federal income tax (16 th
Amendment). This meant that the national government could, for the first time in American history,
raise large amounts of money by taxing the annual incomes of American citizens.
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As the national government moved to address each major crisis of the first two-thirds of the 20th
century, its share of spending rose markedly. When each crisis passed, the federal share of total
spending fell back toward, but never all the way to, pre-crisis levels.
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Nothing made the fact that the American economy had become an integrated whole more clearly than
its collapse in late October 1929. “The Crash,” in which the stock market lost almost a quarter of its
value in two days of panic trading began a decade of deep depression and persistent unemployment.
Cooperative Federalism (1930s-1960s)
A National Emergency
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The 1930s and 1940s were a period of national emergency.
 By the time Franklin Roosevelt assumed office early in 1933, the country had already
been mired in depression for more than three years. The Depression was a national,
even worldwide, economic collapse.
 The economy had declined by 40% from its high, and fully one-third of the workforce
was unemployed. State and local governments were overwhelmed by the needs of their
citizens.
 Roosevelt’s dramatic response – the New Deal – initiated during his “first hundred
days” in office, included “an extraordinary assumption of federal authority over the
nation’s economy and a major expansion of its commerce and taxing power.”
 The Supreme Court, still committed to maintaining as much of the logic and operation
of “dual federalism” as possible, declared virtually all of it unconstitutional.
 Roosevelt threatened to ask the Congress to expand the size of the Supreme Court so that he could “pack” it with
new members more favorably disposed to his vision of an activist role for the federal government. The Supreme
Court blinked. Some members changed their votes; a few retired, and Roosevelt soon had a Supreme Court that
would bless a vastly expanded role for the federal government.
 By June of 1935, the Court had approved several key economic programs including the National Labor Relations
Act, the Railway Labor Act, the Farm Mortgage Act, and the Social Security Act. These decisions amounted to
the end of “dual federalism” and the beginning of a period in which the national government would have the
broad power to set and regulate economic activity in the states. The proportion of total government spending
accounted for by the national government rose from 28% in 1927 to 50% in 1936.
Cooperative Federalism (1930s-1960s)
A National Emergency
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Wickard v. Filburn shows how far the Supreme Court had moved by 1942.
 Roosevelt’s program for rejuvenating agricultural prices, the Agricultural
Adjustment Act, regulated the acreage that farmers could plant.
 Filburn was authorized to plant 11.1 acres of wheat. He planted 23 acres, arguing
that only 11 acres would be sold and the other 12 would feed livestock on his farm.
 The Supreme Court, for decades an absolutely staunch defender of free markets
and of a limited role for Congress in economic regulations, held that feeding the
excess wheat to his own animals meant that he did not have to buy that wheat in
the open market and that tiny effect on “interstate commerce” was enough to bring
him under the purview of Congress’ legitimate constitutional authority.
 The balance between national and state authority within American federalism had
shifted dramatically to the national level.
Cooperative Federalism (1930s-1960s)
Blurred Lines
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World War II drove the federal share of total government spending to 90% by 1944.
 When the war ended in 1945, the United States remained engaged in international politics, aiding in the
rebuilding of the European and Japanese economies and constructing a military alliance to confront Soviet
expansionism
 Although the federal share of total government spending fell below 60% in 1950, the Korean War of the early
1950s drove it back up toward 70%. It has ranged between 60-0% for the past half century.
 Moreover, consolidation of political authority at the national level involved domestic policy as much as it did
foreign and national security policy.
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The national government has become integrated with the state and local governments, making it
difficult to tell where one type of government begins and the other types end.
Cooperative Federalism (1930s-1960s)
Blurred Lines
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State and local governments administer many federal programs and states depend heavily on federal
funds to support their own programs.
 National Defense Education Act, 1958
 Provided funding to United States education institutions at all levels
 While motivated by the increase in the number of students attending college and a growing national sense that U.S. scientists
were falling behind scientists in the Soviet Union, it was regularly catalyzed by early Soviet success in the Space Race,
notably the launch of the first-ever satellite, Sputnik, the year before.
 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, 1965
 Passed by President LBJ as part of his “War on Poverty” and has been the most far-reaching federal legislation affecting
education ever passed by Congress.
 The act is an extensive statue that funds primary and secondary education, while explicitly forbidding the establishment of a
national curriculum.
 It also emphasizes equal access to education and establishes high standards and accountability.
 In addition, the bill aims to shorten the achievement gaps between students by providing each child with fair and equal
opportunities to achieve an exceptional education.
 As mandated in the act, the funds are authorized for professional development, instructional materials, for resources to
support educational programs, and for parental involvement promotion.
 Interstate highway system? Post roads and commerce clause. Joint federal-state programs.
Conclusion
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The United States of America was established with dual federalism in
which states and the national government each remain supreme within
their own spheres.
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However, early on in our nation’s history, two different views were
established concerning federalism. These views were compete against
each other and shape the role government plays.
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The transition from dual to cooperative federalism began with the Civil
War and ended with the Great Depression.
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The states relied so heavily on the aid of the federal government during
the Great Depression that by the end of World War II, to end federal
programs would have been devastating.