Federalism is a system of governmental organization that grants subunits of a polity definitive rights against the central government. It allows these subunits to maintain different norms, or policies, from those of the central government. Thus it differs from decentralization, which is a strategy that the central government adopts in order to carry out its norms or policies more effectively. Federalism is a useful approach when people in a given area have such basic disagreements that they will not agree to live together in a single polity and be bound by its decisions. The United States is blessed with a sense of national unity that makes federalism unnecessary. This was not the case prior to the Civil War, however, and our continued nostalgia for that period induces us to adopt puppy federalism, which looks like the real thing but isn't. Legal scholars should not allow themselves to be fooled; however, as current legislation by the Republican Congress indicates, real federalism garners no support in our political system.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Ackerman, Bruce.1991. We the People. Vol. 1, Foundations. Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press.
2.
Bartkus, Viva.1999. The Dynamic of SecessionNew York: Cambridge University Press.
3.
Beer, Samuel.1993. To Make a Nation. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press.
4.
Birch, Anthony.1993. The Concepts and Theories of Modern Democracy. London: Routledge.
5.
Bonfield, Arthur.1962. The Guarantee Clause of Article IV, Section 4: A Study in Constitutional Desuetude. Minnesota Law Review46:513-72.
6.
Buchanan, Allen.1991. Secession: The Morality of Political Divorce from Fort Sumpter to Lithuania and Quebec. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
7.
Cassese, Antonio.1995. Self-Determination of Peoples. New York: Cambridge University Press.
8.
Chemerinsky, Erwin.1994. Cases Under the Guarantee Clause Should Be Justiciable . University of Colorado Law Review65:849-80.
9.
Choper, Jesse.1980. Judicial Review and the National Political Process . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
10.
—. 1994. Observations on the Guarantee Clause. University of Colorado Law Review65:741-47.
11.
Church Arson Prevention Act. Pub. L. No. 104-155. 110 Stat. 1392 (codified at 18 U.S.C. § 247).
12.
Civil Rights Act. Pub. L. No. 88-352. 78 Stat. 241 (codified in scattered sections of 42 U.S.C.).
13.
Controlled Substance Act. Pub. L. No. 91-513. 84 Stat. 1242 (codified in scattered sections of 21 U.S.C.).
14.
Dikshit, Ramesh.1975. The Political Geography of Federalism. Delhi: Macmilllan Co. of India.
15.
Drug-Induced Rape Prevention and Punishment Act. Pub. L. No. 104-305. 110 Stat. 3807 (codified at 21 U.S.C. 841).
16.
Duchacek, Ivo.1970. Comparative Federalism: The Territorial Dimension of Politics . New York: Holt, Rhinehart & Winston.
17.
Elazar, Daniel.1984. American Federalism: A View From the States. 3d ed. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell .
18.
Feeley, Malcolm and Edward Rubin.1998. Judicial Policy Making and the Modern State: How the Courts Reformed America's Prisons. New York : Cambridge University Press.
19.
Fitzhugh, George. [1854] 1965. Sociology for the South: Or, The Failure of a Free Society. New York: B. Franklin.
20.
Fitzmaurice, John.1983. The Politics of Belgium: Crisis and Compromises in a Plural Society. London: C. Hurst.
21.
Friedrich, Carl.1968. Constitutional Government and Democracy. 4th ed. Waltham, MA: Blaisdell.
22.
Gardner, James.1992. The Failed Discourse of State Constitutionalism . Michigan Law Review90:761-837.
23.
Gillette, William.1979. Retreat from Reconstruction, 1869-1879. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.
24.
Hannum, Hurst.1990. Autonomy, Sovereignty, and Self-Determination. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
25.
Harvey, James.1971. Black Civil Rights During the Johnson Administration . Jackson, MS: University & College Press of Mississippi .
26.
Held, David.1996. Models of Democracy2d ed. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press .
27.
Hildreth, Richard.1854. Despotism in America. New York : Negro University Press.
28.
Kochen, Manfred and Karl Deutsch.1980. Decentralization: Sketches Toward a Rational Theory. Cambridge, MA: Oelgeschlanger, Gunn & Hann.
29.
Kreimer, Seth. 1992. The Law of Choice and the Choice of Law: Abortion, the Right to Travel, and Extraterritorial Regulation in American Federalism. New York University Law Review67:451-519.
30.
Leach, Richard.1970. American Federalism. New York : Norton.
31.
Litwack, Leon.1979. Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery . New York: Knopf.
32.
Lutz, David.1988. The Origins of American Constitutionalism. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.
33.
Mackey, Eva.1999. The House of Difference: Cultural Politics and National Identity in Canada. New York: Routledge .
34.
Main, Jackson Turner.1961. The Antifederalists: Critics of the Constitution 1781-1788 . Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
35.
Martin, John.1979. Civil Rights and the Crisis of Liberalism: The Democratic Party, 1945-76. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
36.
Merritt, Deborah.1988. The Guarantee Clause and State Autonomy: Federalism for a Third Century. Columbia Law Review88:1-78.
37.
Megan's Law. Pub. L. No. 104-145. 110 Stat. 1345 (codified at 42 U.S.C. § 14071).
38.
Morris, William.1968. Decentralization in Management Systems. Columbus: Ohio State University Press.
39.
Olmstead, Frederick Law.1953. The CottonKingdom , ed. Arthur Schlesinger. New York: Knopf.
40.
Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. Pub. L. No. 104-193. 110 Stat. 205 (codified at 42 U.S.C. §§ 601-17).
41.
Rakove, Jack.1979. The Beginnings of National Politics: An Interpretive History of the Constitutional Congress. New York: Knopf.
42.
—. 1996. Original Meanings: Politics and Ideas in the Making of the Constitution. New York: Knopf .
Rubin, Edward and Malcolm Feeley.1994. Federalism: Some Notes on a National Neurosis. UCLA Law Review41:903-52.
45.
Scheppele, Kim.1989. The Ethics of Federalism. In Power Divided, ed. Harry Scheiber and Malcolm Feeley. Berkeley, CA: Institute of Governmental Studies.
46.
Stampp, Kenneth.1959. The Causes of the Civil War. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
47.
Sunstein, Cass.1991. Constitutionalism and Secession. University of Chicago Law Review58:633-70.
48.
Van Doren, Carl.1948. The Great Rehearsal. New York : Times Reading.
49.
Violence Against Women Act. Pub. L. No. 103-322. 108 Stat. 1902 (codified in scattered sections of 8, 18, and 42 U.S.C.).
50.
Woodward, C. Van.1951. The Origins of the New South, 1877-1913. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.
