3 Federalism and American Political Development
I. Introduction: American Federalism and American Politics↑
The Constitution of 1787 emerged out of the crisis of governance caused by the defects of the Articles of Confederation. It was based on a second revolution, a revolution that aimed to expand the power of the national government, a revolution that at the same time had to contend with a variety of competing and contrary perspectives: the egalitarian-individualist “republicans,” with their healthy respect for local and state government, and the hierarchs of the slave states who wished, above all, to protect the institution of slavery. The resulting constitutional structure—the rules that determined policy agency, policy authority, and the policy process— continues to shape ordinary politics in the United States. Yet those constitutional structures are also the subject of political dispute. So while the Constitution of 1787 corrected some of the defects of the American constitutional order, it most certainly did not bring an end to constitutional conflict. In theory, a constitution should establish the rules that allow the political game to be played; in practice, the political players spend a great deal of time arguing about the rules. In the United States, many disputes about the “rules of the game” are about federalism.
The conflicts amongst those who created the Constitution influenced the final product in numerous ways. Given the scope of disagreement amongst the participants, the fears that small states had of the larger states, and given the excesses of majoritarian democracy that occurred under the Articles of Confederation, it is not surprising that the Constitution created an inefficient legislative process. The new constitutional order featured a more powerful national government, but the legislative power of that government was made difficult to mobilize, and thus difficult to abuse. The legislative process was designed to not be very responsive to changes in public will, particularly over the short term. Instead of being based upon the will of the majority, the structure of the constitution would encourage the need for compromise and democratic deliberation.1 The history of American political development, at least in the 20th century, is a history of how the national government attempted to escape the constraints of this cumbersome process– I say “attempted,” because in the end the constitutional structure remained a key influence on the new American state that emerged over the last 60-70 years.
How is inefficiency built into the constitution? Lawmaking requires different institutions to reach agreement: the House, Senate and the President, and in some ways the federal courts. Yet these bodies are constituted in such a way that they are likely to disagree. Representatives, Senators, and Presidents are selected in different ways, at different times, with differing constituents, and thus these three institutions will all tend to hav