Michael Paladino
Unit 1 Test Essay
Richburg, R7
The amount of power government can have has always been debated. In the United States, this issue has been argued multiple times. When the Articles of Confederation were created, too much power was given to state government. The creation of the Constitution was against a group of people called Anti-Federalists. These members of decision were afraid that the new document would write the federal government too much power. Thus, the 10th Amendment was created, which brought us the concept of federalism. Three examples of federalism are the separation of powers, the Supremacy Clause, and reserved powers between levels of government.
Federalism's main goal was to distinguish the power between the federal government and the state government. Power was divided amongst these two levels of U.S. Government to even them out. This is called the separation of powers. Expressed powers, such as the act of declaring war and keeping the states in check, allow the national government to uphold the central ideas of the Constitution.
The Articles of Conferderation, ratified in 1781. ...
The Articles of Confederation, ratified in 1781. T...
The Articles of Conferderation, ratified in 1781. ...These expressed powers also give reserved powers to the state government such as taxes and education. However, with these two separated lists of powers, sometimes we see conflict.
The Supremacy Clause helps to eliminate conflict between levels of government by declaring that national law overrules lower state laws. This means that if an issue over policy erupts between Virginia and the national government, the national government would have the final say. The Supremacy Clause is stated in Article 6 of the Constitution and says that a United States law is the "supreme Law of the Land." The creation of this Article was to make sure that the Articles of Confederation's mistakes were not repeated if two laws contradicted each other. There are multiple clauses within...