Format
Book
Files
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Description
As Americans have monitored federalism, they struggled with how a government based on sovereignty divided between nation and states might function. The Constitution’s shared sovereignty created an inherently dynamic federalism with almost continuous debates over the balance of power, making this testing of the balance of federalism and monitoring government central to the American constitutional order. Many constitutional debates involved the protection of slavery, yet other interests including debt, taxation, and police powers also played vital roles in shaping American federalism. State resistance to the national government utilizing the constitutional tool of interposition arose when the disequilibrium of federalism was most keenly felt and states needed to resist perceived constitutional overreaching by the national government. This state legislative resistance shaped the broader American political conversation about constitutional rights and jurisdiction and this debate over federalism is arguably a strength and not a weakness of the framers’ constitutional design,inviting each generation to determine what the appropriate constitutional balance should be.
ISBN
1009325574
Publication Date
2023
City
Cambridge, United Kingdom; New York, NY, USA
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Keywords
State-local relations, Federal-state controversies, United States, States' rights, American politics
Disciplines
Legal History
Recommended Citation
Fritz, Christian G.. "Monitoring American Federalism: The History of State Legislative Resistance." (2023). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/law_facbookdisplay/206