OBAFEMI AWOLOWO

UNIVERSITY
NAME
AKINLOYE ADEDOLAPO CLEMENT

DEPARTMENT
POLITICAL SCIENCE

FACULTY
SOCIAL SCIENCES

MATRIC NO
POL/2017/025

COURSE CODE / TITLE

POL 322
COMPARATIVE FEDERALISM

LECTURER
PROF. MIMIKO & DR. MBADA

QUESTION
FIND OUT IN USA HOW CRITICAL AND
IMPORTANT EVENTS THAT OCCURRED HAS
IMPACTED THEIR FEDERAL NESS.
It is interesting to define the concept of federalism before going further to discuss
the critical and significant events that has impacted the united state of America
federal system of government.
It is pertinent to note that American state initially practised a confederate system
of government i.e a league of sovereign states before the nation repealed the
Articles of confederation and ratified a new constitution that engendered a
federal system of government.
According to James Q.Wilson and John Dilulio Jn. Federalism is a system of
government in which sovereignity is shared between two or more levels of
government so that on some matters the national government is supreme and on
other the states, regions or provincial governments are supreme. There are three
essential features that charaterised a federal system of governance. First, there
must be a provision for more than one level of government to act simultaneously
on the same territory and on the same territory and on the same citizens. The
American federal system is composed of a national government and the 50 states,
both recognised by the constitution. Secondly, each government must have its
own authority and sphere of power, though they may overlap. Third, neither level
of government (federal or state governments) can abolish the other.
There are several events that had occured in the united states of America and
have impacted their federalness or federal system of government in one way or
the other. These events includes:
1. The Civil War: what culminated into the American civil war was that a fugitive
slave Act of 1850 was passed by congress in an effort to preserve the union. In
1854, the Wisconsin supreme court declared the figititve slave Act of 1850
unconstitutional. The U.S supreme court overturned the state supreme court
decision, which involved Sherman Booth, a noted abolitionist who freed Joshua
Glover, a fugitive slave. The Wisconsin legislature, enuciating the doctrine of
Nullification and states nights, declared null and void the supreme court decision
the reversed the state supreme court decision. In 1857, the U.S supreme court in
Scott V. sandford rebuffed northern abolitionists and declared the fugitive slave
Act constitutional.
The civil war addressed two central issues:
i. The role of the federal government
ii. The nature of the union
Slavery accelerated tensions between nation centred and state-centred concept
of the federal system. On the one hand, there were those who argued that he
union was but a league of sovereign states and that each states had the power to
nullify federal laws within its boundaries or ultimately secede from the union. On
the other side were those who believed that the union was indestructible,
created not by the states but by the people delegating to the states and the
national government certain limited authority enunciated in the constitution. The
question of the nature of the union was resolved in favour of a nation-centred
concept of federalism.
To some reasonable extent, the civil war impacted the structure of American
federal system. The role of the national government was also settled by the civil
war. Before the civil war, the role of government was generally characterized by
decentralisation. The national government acted as servant to the states. During
the war, the state militia and state recruited volunteers were replaced by a policy
of federal conscription and the national government reclaimed control over
currency and banking which had been delegated in large parts to the states during
the 1830's. It must be noted that the civil war was fought not only on the
question of slavery but also central to the conflict were questions of states
sovereignity including the power to nullify federal laws or dissolve the union. Also
the period of civil war was a period when dual federalism was practised in the
United State.
2. The Great Depression: a worldwide economic downturn that began in 1929
and lasted until about 1939. It was the longest and most severe depression over
experienced by the industrialised western world, sparking fundamental changes
in economic institutions, macroeconomic policy, and economic theory. Although it
originated in the United States, the great depression caused drastic declines in
output, severe unemployment and acute deflation in almost every country of the
world. Its social and cultural effects were no less staggering, especially in the
United States where the great depression represented the harshest adversity
faced by Americans since the civil war.
To a greater extent, the great depression of 1929 affected the structure of
American federal system in some ways. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the
congress in response to the economic calamity of the great depression further
expanded the federal role in domestic affairs. States were unable to respond
effectively on their own. The expansion of national government in economic and
social policy were seen as a necessary means of addressing grave national
economic conditions. During this period 16 on-going programs were established.
This period was marked as an era of greater cooperation and collaboration
between the various levels of government. So also the federal grant system,
spurred by the great depression was expanded and fundamentally changed the
power relations between federal and state government.
3. The Terrorist Attacks of 2001: the september 11, assault did more than cast a
dark shadow over the country's sense of security. It established a new reality. Big
national crises increasingly begin as local events, and the early stages of response
depend on the capacity of local governments to act effectively. Homeland security
suddenly became a major issue, depending on a new complex security alliance
across the levels of government. In the aftermath of september 11, New york City
created its own counterterrorism bureau, which quickly became one of the
world's very best, built on close operating relationship with the FBI. That, in turn
became the model for all the nations largest cities and most state governments.
In the coldwar, the federal government drove national security. The age of terror
turned that on its head, with local governments on the front lines. Their capacity
to respond to terrorists and to natural disasters defines this new security
alliances. If local governments stumble, as happened after Hurricane Katrina in
2005, the implications are huge and national President George W Bush never
recovered from the widespread belief that the nation had failed the residents of
New Orleans.
4. The Economic Crisis of 2008 & The Presidential Election: the two most
consequential developments of American federalism in 2008 - 2009 were the
presidential election and a severe economic recession that began in late 2007 and
is expected to last well into 2009. After several years when states were the
primary innovators on many issues that topped the policy agenda, the economic
downturn drew renewed attention to federal policy-making, given the greater
resources and capacities of the federal government. Although federalism was not
a dominant issue in the presidential campaign, Barack Obama's election and
sizeable democratic congressional gains had important implications for federal
state relations by putting federal power in the service of a different set of policy
goals, encouraging state experimentation on a different set of policy issues,
producing a greater willingness to respond to the state pleas for financial
assistance. It was after this economic meltdown that the government made an
Act called the American Recovery and Re-investment Act, the federal stimulus
that pumped more than $830 billion into the economy to revatalize the economy
from the recession. The administration officials concluded that the only way to
avoid an even deeper and longer disaster was with a massive transfusion of
federal cash, especially for shovel-ready state and local projects. To a greater
extent, the economic meltdown exhibited the level of federalness in the United
State.
5. The Passage of The Affordable Care Act (ACA) In 2010: critics have relentlessly
derided the program as a "government takeover of health care". Infact, the ACA
was really a massive expansion in state regulation of private health insurance
markets. Although states problems varied, depending on whether they decided to
create their own exchanges or rely on the federal one, every state's health
insurance commissioner had to devise new strategies to manage the private
companies doing business within their boarders. That, not surprisingly, led to big
variations among the states. But that only underlines the real stories of the ACA.
The struggle, state by state, to figure out how to make health insurance work; the
way big increases in a few states helped drive the congressional campaign against
the law, and the insistence of even republican governors the congress not solve
its tough problems by dumping the hard issue on the state without providing
money to pay for them.