Roosevelts New Deal and American Federalism - Assignment Example

Roosevelt’s New Deal and American Federalism The United States has a very long history spherically with regard to its governance system. One of the main issues which had to be dealt with in the initial days of unionization was of course the separation of state powers from the powers of the federal government. In the modern world, the federal government has gained so much power over the states and this can be seen as being caused by a number of historical events. This has, however, been achieved through a series of evolution of the United States constitution. Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution has been fundamental in expanding the powers of the federal government of the United States. One of the most important clauses of the article is the first clause that gives the federal government the power to impose and collect tax and duties. The same clause provides that the congress shall be mandated with providing defence and welfare to the United States citizens. In the same clause, it postulates that the congress shall impose taxes and duties in a uniform manner across all the states of the United States of America. The third clause is very important as it defined the power of the congress with regard to commerce issues. It states that the congress will have power to regulate powers among the US states and also between the Unites States of America and the rest of the world as well as with the Indian tribes. This clause gave the congress and thus the federal government exclusive power over the state governments, to regulate trade and commerce as well as make, establish and enforce laws regarding commerce. By giving such powers to the federal government, the role of the states was being trampled underneath the federal government and this clause was to later play a big role in defining the power boundaries between the federal government and the state governments. Commerce is definitely very important for any government and giving commercial supremacy to the federal government meant that the power of the state government was minimized and the power for the federal government was increased. Supreme Court judgements in the past have also helped in defining the parameters of the powers of the federal government of the United States of American over the state level laws. These decisions by the United States include the Supreme Court decisions in McCulloch v. Maryland and Gibbons v. Ogden. In the Supreme Court decision in McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), the court ruled that the federal government had superior powers over the states and that the laws of the federal government were to override the laws of the state. In this McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), the second bank of United States found itself in a row with the state of Maryland. The state of Maryland had passed a law that required all banks, local or federal, to only issue local notes and also to pay taxes on these. The second bank of United States did not however want to pay tax because this was not in line with federal bank regulations. As a result, the state of Maryland took the case to court and the case was eventually decided in favour of the second bank of the United States. The Supreme Court quoted the supremacy clause of the United States constitutions and said that the state did not have the power to override the federal laws and that the court should be able subscribe to the federal laws as a guidance to its decision. The same issue was also repeated in the case of Gibbons v. Ogden (1824). In this case, the issue was about the monopoly given to Ogden on the use of the navigation waters of the New York area. The state of New York had given Ogden a monopoly over the waters of the area and also tried to convince the other neighbouring states to do the same but they refused. Gibbons, appealed to the Supreme Court which overruled the decision and argued that the state did not have powers to override the federal laws. The Supreme Court quoted the third clause of the eighth section of article I of the United States of America. This commerce clause of the supremacy article which gives congress the power to make and establish all commerce laws as may affect the nation and the state defined the powers of the unites states congress. This was a very landmark decision by the Supreme Court and was to affect the way the federal and the state laws were to interact. It also affected balance of power between the states and the federal governments in regard to the laws of commerce. The Supreme Court in this regard had established that it was increasingly important for the federal government to have total control of commerce issues in order to have a cohesive government. This decision, which was made after years of deliberation by the supreme court, was together with the McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) supreme court decision a very fundamental building block on the future of the state of commerce as well as the ways in which the federal and the state governments were to work together in building a cohesive national government. New Deal by Franklin Roosevelt and how affected federalism President Franklin Roosevelt came into office when the economy was in great economic turmoil. Unlike many presidents before him, Franklin Roosevelt had to be very creative and controversial in the way he managed the economy and the political scene of the day. He introduced what he and his advisers termed as the new deal. The new deal is said to have been a 3R deal which meant; Relief for the unemployed and those who were left too poor by the great depression, Reform of the financial system which had led to the bad fortunes and Recovery of the economic system back to normalcy. To achieve these three pillars of the new deal, President Roosevelt created a lot of government programs and agencies which were to help in delivering these services (Schmidt, et al 58). This meant that these programs and the funding thereof, were done at the federal level. In fact, these funds reached the state level with lots of detailed instructions and requirements and this meant that the state was losing control and power. Because a federal system is a system where the power is shared between the federal (national) government and the state government, the inclination of financial and economic power towards the federal government during Roosevelt’s time meant that there was a power shift towards the federal government (Mettler 89). This shift from the state towards the federal government can be seen as having a positive and a negative impact. On the positive side, it has led to a more cohesive United States government which makes it competent in the global arena. According to senate, a strong federal government is very important as a way to have a cohesive government which will help the national to be competent in the world arena. There are however the negative sides of having a strong federal government and a weak state level government. For instance, it becomes harder for the state government to be able to implement state level programs which will benefit the people at that level. This can mean that mistakes done by the federal government will have to affect individual states even in cases where the people at state level did not have to be affected. A string state level government would also be necessary to be able to keep the federal government in check as well as providing polices which are most relevant to the specific states. Works Cited Mettler, Suzanne. Dividing Citizens: Gender and Federalism in New Deal Public Policy. New York, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998. Print Schmidt, Stefan. et al. American Government and Politics Today 2011-2012. London, UK: Cengage Learning, 2011. Print Read More