The Constitutional Underpinnings of Federalism, and Its Effect on the Practice of Democracy in the United States
Federalism is ""the distribution of power in an organization (as a government) between a central authority and the constituent units" (Webster's New American Dictionary, p. 190). Within Federalism as a government system, a group (i.e., of people, states, or provinces) is characteristically bound together, and governed by a head with centralized authority. Such an authority may be, for example, a king; a president; a pope or other church or religious leader; a prime minister, or another kind of leader with similar, centralized, authority. Federalism consists of a stronger federal (i.e., governed by centralized authority) government, along with weaker provincial or state governments, whose authority is more localized and does not extend beyond a given, designated locality. Proponents of such a form of government are called Federalists. I will discuss ways that the concept and practice of Federalism within the United States arguably affects the practice of American democracy. As a political philosophy and/or governmental structure and/or practice, Federalism is, essentially, a system within which leadership is divided, constitutionally, between that of a centralized authority (e.g., a king; president, or similar author
Federalism also provides for the separation of powers, and for checks and balances on the three main branches of national government of the United States: the legislative; the executive, and the judicial. Further: "Dual federalism [i.e., Federalism as conceived by the Founding Fathers and practiced in the United States] holds that the federal government and the state governments are co-equals, each sovereign" ("Federalism", Wikipedia). Another argument against Federalism has to do with inability of Federal government to actually protect rights of citizens in individual states, especially their civil rights and liberties ("Federalism", Wikipedia). For example: On the one hand, some U.S. states have regrettable histories of denying civil The Founding Fathers of the United States, who were also the authors of the U.S. Constitution, were all members of the Federalist Party (Carman). Philosophically speaking, Federalist theory argues that: ". . . federalism provides a robust constitutional system that anchors pluralist democracy, and that it enhances democratic participation through providing dual citizenship in a compound republic" ("Federalism", Wikipedia). Three of the twelve Founding Fathers of America, moreover, argued specifically in The Federalist Papers (Hamilton, Jay, and Madison, 1788), which consisted of 85 separate documents, for ratification of the U.S. Constitution (The Federalist Papers) that a Federalist government would help to preserve and protect the union (No. 15-22). In terms of the actual constitutional underpinnings of United States federalism and U.S. federalism's effect(s) on the practice of democracy in the United States, first, democracy is characteristically seen as a "form of government in which policy is decided by the preference of the real majority, as opposed to a partial or relat
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