September 23, 2025 - With issues such as health care, education and infrastructure increasingly entangled in federal mandates, legislative leaders are grappling with how to uphold the delicate balance of power that defines American federalism.

September 17, 2025 - The unprecedented attacks on states' rights jeopardize American federalism and the separation of powers across political jurisdictions.

Two basic responses to the banking crisis were on the table in the weeks prior to the Act’s passage: unification of the national banking system under federal control or preservation of the state unit banking system augmented by a full federal guarantee of deposits made in every American bank. The conflict between these two alternatives represented the final episode in the nearly 150-year-long struggle between state and federal authorities for control over the banking system.

The state of American federalism is characterized by polarization and punitiveness. As in previous years, political polarization continues to shape intergovernmental relations. But we also identify punitiveness as an increasingly prevalent aspect of ...

July 29, 2024 - For a number of years, that area has pitted states wanting to relax prohibitions and spawn new businesses against existing laws preventing interstate commerce involving illegal drugs or using the national banking system to transfer money. The resulting jurisdictional conflicts have strained federalism and made it difficult for businesses to know whose laws they should obey.

5 days ago - Beyond debates about algorithms and the computing power of large language models (LLM) is the ongoing tension between states’ rights and the federal government, that is to say, the very boundaries of our federalism. The fight has been simmering for a while, but it erupted in full volcanic fury during this past summer’s debate over Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, which contained a provision banning state artificial intelligence laws for a period of up to 10 years.

Delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 eventually emerged with a structure described by James Madison as “partly national, partly federal.” This contemplated a genuinely national gov­ernment, with representation from the people (and not just the states) and power to enforce its own laws through a vigorous executive and an indepen­dent judiciary, but the states would retain political autonomy and authority over the issues most significant to ordinary life.

State and local officials and entities will certainly have an interest in collaborating with the federal government and taking advantage of federal largesse, whether to advance their own or their parties’ political ambitions, or to help resolve the governance problems they face. But the decisional independence the federalist system affords will often be of political and policy value, too, and will be worth fighting to preserve, even when it places them at odds with the potential federal benefactor.

December 12, 2022 - View Event Online: Original Event Information: James Madison wrote in the Federalist Papers that “The powers” granted by the Constitution to “the federal government are few and defined,” while those granted to “the State governments are numerous and indefinite.” Yet Article VI of the Constitution also established the supremacy of U.S. laws over those of […]

October 16, 2020 - State attorney general offices often challenge federal actions based on federalism principles, and they sometimes must defend state laws and enforcement actions against claims that they overstep the states’ role in our federal system.

Divide students into two groups — Federalists and Anti-Federalists — and ask them to debate each other about whether or not federal government should reign supreme over state government.

The political-process conception of federalism embraced in Garcia has largely been supplanted in a series of Supreme Court decisions beginning in the 1990s and continuing to the present.24 The currently prevailing view is that the judiciary has an important role in safeguarding state governments from federal overreach.25 For instance, in 1995, the Court in United States v.

A brawl between Federalists and anti-Federalists, 1788 | In 1787 and 1788, debates over the ratification of the Constitution took place in towns and villages across the country. To gain support, both Federalists and anti-Federalists held meetings and marches that sometimes became violent.

March 13, 2024 - Federalists won the ratification debate when the new Constitution became the official governing document in the United States in 1788. But their victory was not complete. Anti-Federalists rallied to ratify the Bill of Rights in 1791. Those 10 amendments to the Constitution protected individual liberties. Federalists and Anti-Federalists continued to fight over the future of the U.S.

In other words, it was a battle over federalism—the question of how much power to give to the national government and how much power to keep with the states.

August 1, 2023 - Anti-Federalists thought the new American constitution would give the federal government too much power. Their opposition led to the Bill of Rights.

Anti-Federalism was a movement in the United States characterized by opposition to a strong federal government, particularly in the context of the post-Revolutionary War era. Following the American victory and the establishment of the Articles ...

1 week ago - The Anti-Federalists were a late-18th-century group in the United States advancing a political movement that opposed the creation of a stronger federal government and which later opposed the ratification of the 1787 Constitution.

2 weeks ago - In the decades before the Civil War, both Northern and Southern states clashed with the national government over perceived overreaches in its power. These conflicts struck at the heart of dual federalism, and reflected a fundamental disagreement about the division of power between the national ...