


http://www.commonwealthfoundation.org/po
licyblog/detail/sat-scores-by-state-2014
Comparisons can be tricky!
Bases for comparison: D&M, Ch. 1
Population growth
 Race and ethnicity
 Political ideology (liberal/conservative)
 Political culture
 Religious practice
 Socioeconomic characteristics

 Education, income, health, etc.
The states existed before the national
government did. They are not
creations of the national government.



“united States” or “United States”?
We knew we needed a defense alliance to
fight the Revolution, but it was unclear at the
time whether we would subsequently be one
large nation or a collection of smaller, semiindependent “nation-states.”
So we won the Revolution…now what?




Thomas Jefferson believed that government which
is closer to the people is less likely to be tyrannical,
and should therefore be given more power.
“Closer to the people” means state, rather than
national, government. Jeffersonian philosophy
anticipated that the states would be more powerful
than the national government.
Alexander Hamilton and the Federalists favored a
stronger national government.
The Jeffersonians won, at first. The Articles of
Confederation (1781-1787) established a very weak
national government.







http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/artconf.asp
National government had no power to raise or pay a
military
States were required to maintain an active militia
Unicameral legislature, one vote per state regardless
of population
Nine votes out of 13 required to pass most legislation
Some significant legislation had to be unanimous
Delegates to Congress were considered to be officials
of their states (who paid them), not officials of the
national government



States could conduct their own foreign
policies, and make treaties with other nations,
with the consent of the national Congress
States could impose their own tariffs on
foreign goods as long as the tariff was
reciprocal or did not conflict with national
treaties with France and Spain.
States could issue their own declarations of
war if actually invaded or informed of
imminent attack by Indians; this had to
eventually be approved by national Congress.

Both national and state
governments had the power to coin
money. This, combined with the
states’ ability to conduct their own
trade policies, meant we had 13
state economic systems instead of
one national economy.

The Articles of Confederation were soon
found to provide too little power to the
national government. The Constitutional
Convention which met in Philadelphia in
1787 was originally intended only to revise
the Articles and correct some specific
problems, but it was quickly decided to create
an entire new system of government.



Division of power and responsibility between
national and state governments. In our system,
each has specified powers and responsibilities
that they can’t take away from each other.
Unitary system (>90% of world’s governments):
National government gives only the power to
provinces, lower divisions that it wants to
delegate.
Confederation: Smaller units of government give
only the power to the national government that
they want to delegate.


The Constitution made the national
government more powerful and the states less
powerful than had been the case under the
Articles. In order for the states to ratify this
arrangement, certain guarantees of state
power had to be made.
The Constitution guarantees each state a
republican form of government and
protection “against Invasion.”



The national government has exclusive
responsibility for foreign policy
States no longer conduct their own foreign
policy or have tariff power against other
countries
The national government has primary
responsibility for military defense (state
militias still exist in the form of the National
Guard, which may be mobilized for national
defense)



The national government coins money and
regulates international and interstate
commerce
States may not impose tariffs on each other’s
goods
Supremacy Clause: The U.S. Constitution is the
supreme law of the land; in the event of a
conflict between the USC and a state policy, the
USC prevails.




Federal: National economy, foreign policy, defense
State/local: Education, health, welfare, transportation,
most law enforcement
But the federal government provides funding for many
activities which are carried out by state and local
government (Pell Grants, Medicaid, highway funding)
What happens if a state feels that the federal
government is failing to fulfill its responsibilities in a
given area?


Arizona immigration example, D&M Ch. 1
D&M, p. 21: Chart on how state and local governments
spend their money, an indication of how significant
each of their policy responsibilities may be



In order to get enough states to agree to ratify
the Constitution, certain compromises had to
be made:
Large states and small: Connecticut
Compromise based the House of
Representatives on equal population and the
Senate on equal representation by state
North and South: Importation of slaves
banned by 1808 (but not immediately), and
Three-Fifths Compromise on population
counted for representation

The Senate
Constitutional Amendments
The Electoral College
The Tenth Amendment

The Senate:








Originally, the Senate represented “the states” while the House
represented “the people”
Senators are chosen to represent their states as a whole
States have equal representation regardless of population
Senators were originally chosen by state legislatures until the
17th Amendment was ratified in 1913
The Governor, subject to state law, may make a temporary
appointment to fill a vacancy (not true in all states)


The Constitution, and Senate rules, allow a
small number of states to block action which
doesn’t serve their interests
22 Senators from 11 Southern states were able
to block civil rights legislation until the 1950’s
and 1960’s even though the rest of the country
supported it

Amendment process: Legislatures or ratifying
conventions in three-quarters of the states must
approve a Constitutional amendment after
passage by Congress or a Constitutional
Convention




The President and Vice President are not
chosen in a national election, but in 51
separate elections (each state plus DC)
This requires not a majority of the vote, but a
majority of the vote distributed in a certain
way: A majority of the vote in each one of a
group of states which make up a majority of
the Electoral College
Usually but not always (as in 2000) equal to a
majority of the population
This protects state interests


Smaller states have disproportionate influence
because of the two extra electoral votes
corresponding to the Senators
State legislatures have the power to determine
how electors are chosen (“in such manner as the
legislature thereof may direct”)
Majority vote winner in every state gets all of the
electoral vote
 Exceptions: Nebraska and Maine award one electoral
vote to the winner in each Congressional District and
two to the winner of the state as a whole (Obama got
one electoral vote in Nebraska in 2008)


All 50 states and DC have laws providing that
electors are chosen by popular vote, but a
legislature could change that if they chose


There is no right under the US Constitution for
individuals to vote for President
A legislature may choose the electors
themselves (Florida would have in 2000, SC
did until being readmitted after the Civil
War)

The Anti-Federalist political movement
opposed the Constitution as originally
drafted because, in their view, it gave too
much power to the national government.
Several states (including North Carolina and
Rhode Island) expressed a reluctance to ratify
the Constitution unless further curbs were
placed on the national government. So
Congress passed the Bill of Rights (first ten
Amendments) and sent it to the states for
ratification.


Most of the Bill of Rights restricts the
national government’s power to curb
individual behavior (protection of freedom of
speech, religion, etc.), but the protection of
the states’ power is specified by the Tenth
Amendment:
“The powers not delegated to the United
States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by
it to the States, are reserved to the States
respectively, or to the people.”





The Constitution gives the national
government certain specified powers;
It prohibits the states from having certain
specified powers;
Unless the Constitution specifies one or the
other, the assumption is that the states and
the people may do something, while the
federal government may not.
States and people can do anything the
Constitution doesn’t say they can’t.
National government can only do what the
Constitution says it can.



McCulloch v. Maryland (1815): U.S. Supreme
Court ruling that national laws take precedence
over state laws. The State of Maryland had no
authority to tax the Baltimore branch of the Bank
of the United States (a U.S. government agency).
Slavery and segregation: Did the federal
government have the power to restrict state
government policies in these areas?
Today, states are asserting power in response to
what they see as federal inaction to curb illegal
immigration.

The phrase “states’ rights” is generally
associated in contemporary usage with
support for slavery in the 19th Century and for
legally mandated racial segregation in the
20th. In both cases, the Southern states saw the
national government as abusing its power
and violating the states’ authority to govern
their own affairs and make their own policies.
They saw the federal government’s position
(against the expansion of slavery, for
integration of public facilities) as
fundamentally threatening to their social and
economic structures.


However, there is nothing inherently racist,
pro-slavery, pro-segregation or antidemocratic about the philosophy that the
states are better equipped than the federal
government to make policies and handle
problems (this was Jefferson’s belief).
Tension between different levels of
government over whose power and
responsibility it is to make those decisions is
one which always exists within a system of
separated, checked and balanced power, as it
does between Congress and the President.


The Constitution provides that new states may
be admitted on an equal basis with the existing
states, by vote of Congress. 37 states have been
admitted since the original 13.
The right to secede is not discussed in the
Constitution (either in favor or against). When
the former Confederate states were readmitted
to the Union after the Civil War, they explicitly
renounced the right to secede.

Places that are not states may be governed by
Congress with some limited self-government.
The District of Columbia (the Constitution specifies that
Congress has jurisdiction over the nation’s capital; DC
has a locally elected mayor and City Council whose
decisions may be overturned by Congress)
 Puerto Rico is a commonwealth with limited autonomy
 Guam, the Virgin Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands,
and American Samoa are territories.
 Most non-original states were territories or parts of
territories before they were admitted to the Union.
