Myth: The continuing demand for expanding government services, which brings with it the need for more robust taxing power, requires America to rely on a centralized federal government.
Truth: The United States is a federal system. Both state and federal governments draw their power from the people in the form of constitutions which define the powers and responsibilities that the people have delegated to their governments.
The 10th Amendment of the United States Constitution provides that: “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.”
Federalism is the theory or advocacy of federal principles for dividing powers between member units and common institutions. The U.S. Constitution establishes a government based on “federalism,” or the sharing of power between the national, and state (and local) governments. Our power-sharing form of government is the opposite of “centralized” governments, such as that of France, under which national government maintains total power.
The founding fathers realized that a federal system was necessary for two reasons.
First, they had an acute understanding of the fallen nature of man and his propensity to abuse power. Not only did they divide governmental power between three branches on the national level, they also put in the Constitution strong protection of state governments and their prerogatives. Because no one government had control of all spheres of power, the founding fathers hoped liberty would be preserved.
Secondly, they realized the practical considerations of a nation stretching from “sea to shining sea.” What might be a good policy in urbanized New Jersey might be a disastrous policy in rural Wyoming. If all legislation was made at the national level, however, the ability to tailor laws to local needs and concerns would have been substantially diminished. This is what we have seen with increased federal regulations – bureaucrats in Washington D.C. are making policy decisions that have significant affects on the local level without being in tune with those local concerns. For the founding fathers, federalism was a key part to American self-government and an essential part of ordered liberty.
