Megha Majumder

Federalism in the United States

Federalism is a form of government in which the power to make decisions concerning major decisions is divided between the national government and other governmental units, like state governments. On one hand, there is the concept of federalism. On the other hand, there exists the concept of a confederation, in which states, for example, are dominant and hold more power than the national government. Throughout the 20th century, the power of the federal government has increased through numerous court decisions. While a lot of recent political debates have focused on returning power to the states, the relationship between the federal government and the states has been argued over for most of the history of the United States, particularly among the issues of secession, nullification, and voting rights.

Secession is defined as the formal separation from an alliance or federation. In 1860, Lincoln's election brought the Southern states of South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, Louisiana, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee to the point of secession and put the government of the United States in a precarious position. Lincoln had to choose whether he should he allow peaceful secession or whether he should force the rebels to stay apart of the Union. This itself is an example of federalism because the states felt that they had a right to secede from the Union and wished to do so, but Lincoln felt that the federal government was the one to make the final decision, and he decided that he would not stand for secession, that united they would stand, and divided they would fall. The South had a few reasons for secession. For example, they did not want Lincoln to be in office in the first place; this angered many Southerners. Secondly, they did not want slavery to become

non-existent. Thirdly, they believed that the policies of Lincoln, a Republican president, including protective tariffs and free homesteads in the west would prevent the South from prospering. Despite Lincoln's nay on the matter of secession, southern states seceded anyway, which caused Lincoln to employ force because the South was denying the democratic principle that formed the basis of the Union. It was the most serious secession movement in the United States and was defeated when the Union armies defeated the Confederate armies in the Civil War, from 1861 through 1865.

The concept of nullification is that individual states refuse to enforce certain federal laws which they may find to be unconstitutional, and that the states, not the national government, should have the final word on the interpretation of the Constitution. Nullification is an example of federalism, and it became a highly-debated issue, particularly during the late 18th century, when the Anti-Federalist first came up with the idea of nullification, which was in 1789. At this time, the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions were passed, giving nullification rights to the States. This practice was discarded when Federalists came into power and took positions in the federal government. The nullification theory came iinto being when the economic depression of the 1820s occurred, mainly affecting Southern states like South Carolina. The state of South Carolina wished to override the Tariff of 1828, or the Tariff of Abominations, claiming that nullifying a federal law was constitutional if of the states did not agree with it. However, the federal government at this time did not stand for that, and introduced the force bill, which allowed the President to use force to keep the Union together and to reinstate the fact that federal government's power surpassed that of the state's in matters regarding the interpretation of the constitution.

The issue of voting rights was another highly-debated controversy involving federalism, because both the federal government and state governments felt that they had the power to decide the

procedures by which elections are run and who was eligible to vote. A prime example of this controversy in the history of the United States involves the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which relates to federalism because it put the federal government in charge of the voting procedures in numerous states, most of which were in the South. This outraged those states, but it was still established that the federal government had greater power over the states regarding voting rights. In the 1960s, it was found that many Southern states had been using voting rules to keep African Americans from voting, such as the literacy test and the Grandfather Clause. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 tried to stop this by taking the power to set up voting arrangements away from those states and giving it to the federal government. This is why this law relates to federalism; it took a power away from the state governments, restricting their power over voting rights, and gave it to the federal government.

Conclusively, federalism is the division of power in a nation, between the federal government and smaller political units, such as the state governments. The history of the United States involves much controversy concerning the concept of federalism, and time and time again, it has been established that the federal government has more power regarding secession, nullification (both of which were outlawed), and voting rights than the state governments through various Supreme Court decisions. Even today, the subject of federalism is widely debated, but Lincoln's words, as of yet, have remained true (and have been proven countless times in America's history): United we stand, Divided we fall.