the longest land border in the world. Cannabis and drug prohibition are areas that highlight the conflict between states' rights and federalism that has characterized political culture and discourse in the United States for centuries.
Interestingly, the debate over the status of cannabis has forced Republicans -- long the stalwart champions of states' rights -- to reconsider their stance on drugs. Republicans have been consistently inconsistent in what should be state versus federal jurisdiction. For example, some religious conservatives vie for federally illegal abortions or restrictions on civil rights like the proposed Defense of Marriage Act. The War on Drugs was started by a Republican President, Nixon, and strengthened by Republican… Continue Reading...
Federalism and Constitutional Debates
One of the most significant and innovative ideas in the American Constitution is federalism even though the word does not appear in it. This concept entails sharing of power between two different levels of government i.e. federal and state governments. Through this system of government, power from the central government is shared to state governments. While federalism has existed in the United States for centuries, there are numerous problems relating to the sharing of power between these different levels of government. These problems have generated constitutional… Continue Reading...
Federalism and Religious Freedoms: The Importance of and the Adherence to the Separation of Church and State in a Multicultural Environment
Although it is clear that many religious concepts were embedded into the original drafting of the Constriction and the Nation's laws, maintaining a separation of church and state in the official capacity allowed the country to prosper in many ways. Having civil laws that govern beyond religious controls allows for a level of stability that can accommodate many difference ideologies.
Federalism and Religious Freedoms
A Federalist design works to… Continue Reading...
to set up and enlarge its planned national entitlement schemes (Brown-Nagin, 2013). A huge disagreement in the beliefs of federalism has been bared for all via the suits contesting the Obamacare mandate. A school of thought believes that the government should get involved even constitutionally in situations when certain states do not have individual capabilities to settle a particular dispute. This school also believes that the main reason why the Constitution clearly specifies national bodies is in order to give Congress the power to arbitrate joint problems faced by the states. I will call this school of thought collective action federalism, based on write-ups by Neil Siegel and Robert… Continue Reading...
[13: Wechsler, Herbert. "The political safeguards of federalism: The role of the states in the composition and selection of the national government." Columbia Law Review (1954): 548.]
The most important role of the populace is to make sure that their leaders and themselves remain faithful to the ideals that define them. The ballot box and the free press can help these ends to be realized. It is not possible to speak in support of the founding principles of the USA, if, in the first place, we do not even know what such principles are. Citizen engagement is… Continue Reading...
between federalists and anti-federalists precipitated the string of acts and legislation that led eventually to war. Federalism was feared for the wrong reasons; it could have easily imparted a cohesive national character based on the principles of “liberty and justice for all,” but was instead viewed as an attempt to create a tyrannical regime. Driven by self-interest and unwilling to work together with their compatriots in the northeast, settlers eyeing new western territories laid the seeds for Civil War. They embraced anti-federalist sentiments during Westward Expansion because of a sense of entitlement and a belief in white supremacy. These settlers twisted their own Christian ethics into… Continue Reading...
