American Government Study Guide

1.2 Federalism One of the major failures of The Articles of Confederation is that too much power was given to the states when not enough was given to the federal government. In that system, the power and authority didn’t really exist on a federal level. That means if there was a threat of invasion, economic opportu- nities, or alliances and treaties to be made, the each state would do what is in their own interests as opposed to the interests of the nation. The United States under the Constitution of the United States needed to provide the federal govern- ment more power but at the same time, not strip states of their autonomy to govern their own people. When power is shared between the state and federal governments, then a system of federalism ex- ists. Having a hierarchy of government from federal to state to local, provides a clear authority while still providing an outlet for changes on the state and local levels to govern their own people. A federal government must have the authority to unite the states during times where unity is a ne- cessity. The federal government must have the power to raise an army, conduct international and interstate commerce, and to establish treaties and alliances across the globe. By holding true to the principle of federalism, the United States Constitution will provide the means to do such things throughout its articles. 1.3 Limited Government The previous section detailed the importance of providing power to the federal government. And while that power is paramount to the success of any great nation, there must be limits put into place so the power of that federal government never becomes too great that the people can’t change it. If the people are truly sovereign, then they must be able to change and replace the government based upon the general will of the public. If this is prohibited based upon the structure of the government, then it will turn into an authoritarian government much like a dictatorship or a monarchy. The very essence as to why the colonies broke away from the monarch in Britain was because of their lack of representation and voice within the government. In order for the founding fathers to avoid this situation from taking place, they needed to instill the principle of limited government . Limited government is the idea that the government can only exer- cise powers that have been given to it in the constitution. The roles and functions of the government are laid out in the constitution, but there were some loopholes that have enabled the power of gov- ernment to expand over time. These loopholes will be discussed in later chapters. Limited government also ensure that state and local levels of government can assert powers over their jurisdictions due to the fact that the federal government’s oversight is expressly written within the constitution. Limited government places restrictions on all levels of which provides the people an

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