Week 2 Lecture
The U.S. Constitution and Federalism
The Declaration of Independence
• In 1776, the Declaration of Independence,
written by Thomas Jefferson, was adopted by
the Second Continental Congress. It asserted
that “unalienable rights” – including life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness – could
not be denied by government.
• These ideals sought to create a common
national identity and promote unity among
the colonists.
The Articles of Confederation
• In 1777, having declared independence, the
Continental Congress adopted the Articles of
Confederation and Perpetual Union, the United
States’ first written constitution, which was the
basis for the U.S. national government until 1789.
• The governmental model was a confederation, a
system in which the states retain sovereign
authority except for the powers expressly
delegated to the national government.
The Second Founding: From
Compromise to Constitution
• Under the Articles of Confederation, Congress
was unable to enforce treaties unless the
states agreed to them. This made the national
government illegitimate in the eyes of other
nations and vulnerable to threats from them.
• Because of the weakness of the Articles, in
1786, the Annapolis Convention sought to
devise a constitutional revision that would
meet the needs of the union.
The Constitutional Convention
• The delegates convened to revise the Articles
of Confederation in Philadelphia in May 1787.
• These delegates soon recognized that the
issues they wanted to address were
fundamental flaws of the Articles and
abandoned plans to revise them, instead
attempting to create a new, legitimate and
effective government.
The Great Compromise
• During the Constitutional Convention, a
controversy between the large and small states
threatened to destroy the nation.
• In order to get over this rivalry, the Great
Compromise, which is also called the Connecticut
Compromise, Congress would comprise two
houses organized as follow: one branch, the
House of Representatives, would be apportioned
according to the population of each state. In the
other branch, the Senate, each state would have
an equal vote regardless of size.
The Question of Slavery: The ThreeFifths Compromise
• While some representatives to the convention found
slavery morally reprehensible, the real concern was
whether slaves would count as part of the population
for representation purposes (which would dramatically
inflate the representation of the southern states).
• The two sides reached the Three fifths Compromise, by
which seats in the House of Representatives would be
apportioned according to a “population” in which
every slave would be counted as three fifths of a
person. Through this compromise, the issue of slavery
as a political threat to the nation was essentially
postponed.
The U.S. Constitution
• Through the U.S. Constitution, the new government would
promote commerce, protect individual property, limit
excessive democracy, promote widespread public support
of the Constitution, and limit government power abuse.
• Several constitutional principles would help achieve these
goals:
• Bicameralism
• Checks and Balances
• Electoral College
• Bill of Rights
• Separation of Powers
Fight for Ratification and Changing the
Constitution
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Federalists vs. Antifederalists.
Tyranny of the Majority
Governmental Power
Amendment Process:
1. Passage in House and Senate, each by a two
thirds vote, followed by majority ratification by
three fourths of the states’ legislatures.
• 2. Passage in House and Senate, each by a two
thirds vote, followed by ratification by three
fourths of the states’ conventions (used only once
– to repeal Prohibition).
The System of Federalism
• The Constitution provides the United States with
federalism, a system of government in which power is
divided between a central government and regional
governments. In the federal system, the national
government shares power with lower levels of
government, such as the states.
• The Constitution limited national government by
creating a second layer of state government power.
The Constitution and the Bill of Rights recognized two
sovereign powers by granting a few expressed powers
to the national government and reserving all others to
the states.
Powers of the National Government
and the State Governments
• The seventeen express powers of the Congress
include the power to collect taxes, to coin money,
to declare war, and to regulate commerce. The
necessary and proper clause of Article I, Section
8, provides an important source for the national
government: implied powers.
• The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution is also
called the reserved powers amendment. It states
that the powers not delegated to the national
government or prohibited are “reserved to the
states respectively, or to the people.”
The Changing Relationship between
the Federal Government and the
States
• Restraining National Power with Dual
Federalism
• Federalism and the Slow Growth of the
National Government’s Power
• The Changing Role of the States
Public Spending and the Federal
Framework
• The Constitution does not answer the
question of how to divide responsibilities
between the states and national government.
• The New Deal
• Federal Grants
• Cooperative Federalism
• Regulated Federalism and National Standards
• New Federalism and State Control