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Basic Constitutional Concepts
Now the Framers of America’s Constitution did not create a federal
pattern of politics because they had read about something of the sort in
an old book. No, American federalism resulted from circumstances in the
United States in the year 1787 rather than an abstract theory. True, many
of the Framers saw that a weak confederation, under the Articles, was an
insufficient system of government. And they perceived that centralized
or unitary government (then the pattern in nearly all European states)
had its grave faults. But the primary reason why the Framers chose a federal system was that the federal arrangement was just what the American people wanted, and needed, in a very practical sense, in 1787. Federalism as a theory of government, in other words, emerged after the
Framers wrote the Constitution.
One alternative to federalism was simply to continue the arrangement
established under the Articles of Confederation, and a good many Americans might have been content enough to do so. But this feeble confederation had major economic disadvantages and scarcely could defend itself against foreign enemies.
The other alternative to federalism was a unitary, or centralized, form
of government, with all real power concentrated in the nation’s capital.
Turgot, Condorcet, and other French political thinkers of the 1780s were
surprised and almost indignant that the Americans had not formed such
a political structure when they won their independence from Britain. But
the American people, having thrown off the central power of the Kingin-Parliament, were not disposed to establish some new central authority
to tell them what to do. Besides, the great majority of American citizens
were warmly attached to their State and local governments. They feared
that consolidation would diminish their local and personal freedoms.
What the Framers agreed upon, then, was a satisfactory compromise
between the people who desired a strong general government and the
people who wanted to preserve State and local powers of decision. Under the federal arrangement—something new in human society, at least
on so large a scale as in the United States—the several States were still
called ‘‘sovereign,’’ as if there were no higher political power above them.
But through the federal arrangement, there was created a general government with vastly superior powers. The Constitution allocated some powers to the Federal government, and guaranteed that all other political