The Founders wanted the states to keep their local traditions and governance. Each locality would have different needs and problems. Federalism allows the different states to implement and experiment with policies that suit their localities. If successful, they can serve as models for other states or for the nation as a whole.

The Founders could not foresee every possible issue or problem that could arise. As a concession to some that feared overreaching Federal power, the tenth amendment was drafted as a safeguard to states and a further check on Federal power.

McColloch v Maryland in 1819 was the first major court case dealing with interpretation of Federal and State Power. The issue in this case was whether the Federal Government had the power to create a national bank. The constitution does not explicitly grant that power, but the court ruled that because of the Necessary and Proper Clause, the Federal government has implied powers that go beyond those explicitly stated.

Related to the struggle between the Federal Government and State Governments over the issue of slavery and southern states fearing a federal ban, states adopted a policy of nullification. It was an assertion of state's rights to nullify federal law they deemed harmful to their sovereignty.

Congress under the Articles of Confederation could do all of these things. That said, those were about the extent of Congress’ power. Congress, for example, could not levy taxes on the states. The states were supposed to pay an amount based off of the amount of land in each individual states, but Congress was forced to ask for the money—it had no way of enforcing that obligation. Unsurprisingly, the states rarely paid, and when they did pay, it was almost never in full. This, of course, left a chronically un[der]funded Congress—arguably one of the more important reasons that led to the dismantling of the Articles of Confederation.

Among the other important powers that Congress did not have: Congress could not regulate interstate or foreign commerce. Additionally, the somewhat astronomical debts from the Revolutionary War were becoming harder and harder for Congress (who had no way to get money) to pay.

Our system of government is fairly unusual; as a federal system, it combines elements of a confederation, where the lower level of government (the states, for example) has the majority of the power, and a unitary system of government, where the national level of government has all of the power. It, much like the constitution itself, is an amalgam—the founders would likely say that it has the best of both elements of government.

Interestingly, our founders had the distinct benefit of living under both a confederation AND a unitary system prior to creating our federal government. The US was a confederation under the AoC and a unitary system under British rule. Thus we see elements of both—states retaining power from the central government, and the central government having power over the states.

This should be a fairly straightforward question. Under the constitution, only the states and the federal governments are recognized levels of governments. That doesn’t mean that local governments don’t exist (clearly, they do), it just means that they don’t have an independent constitutional basis for existence. In other words, they rely upon the states for their existence, and are subject to the whim of the states. A more succinct way of putting it is that the local governments function as administrative arms of the state governments.

The states, on the other hand, exist co-dependently with the federal government. They each are in a position to exert some leverage over the other.

Dual federalism is the correct answer, although this question is slightly misleading. It is much easier to envision dual and shared federalism as a continuum rather than strict alternatives. In other words, our government relations have never been one OR the other; it was mostly dual and now it is mostly shared. There have always been elements of both present.

Dual federalism is the idea that the federal government and the state governments preside over mutually exclusive spheres of sovereignty. This is a somewhat wordy way of saying that each level of government had their own responsibilities upon which the other could not intrude.

Shared federalism is the more accurate way to depict our nation-state relations currently. Shared federalism is the idea that, essentially, both the national government and the state governments work in concert to supply services to the public.

Nationalization is the correct answer—pay attention to the wording. You may have been tempted to put “shared federalism” due to question 1, but that is not correct. Remember: shared federalism is an idea or a description of government—it is not a process per se.

Nationalization is the process responsible for shifting power from state governments to the federal governments (and thus switching the relations from mostly dual to mostly shared federalism). There are several different means of nationalization; preemption, state-adverse Supreme Court decisions, or Congressional “carrots” (budget ‘gifts’ to states for compliance), to name a few. All of them, however, have shifted power from the states to the federal government. 

This is a very tricky, mean question. There is no FEDERAL drinking age: under federalism doctrines, the health, safety, welfare, and morals of the citizens are the responsibilities of the state government (called the ‘police power’ of the state). The drinking age, of course, falls under this. At this point many, if not all of you, are scratching your heads and wondering why it says “21 to drink” anywhere there’s alcohol.

The short answer is that every state raised its drinking age (generally from 18) to 21. They were pressured to do this, of course, by Congress. The rather long backstory to this begins with MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving), who was tired of lobbying individual states—essentially that was taking too long. Thus, MADD decided that the smarter thing to do would be to lobby Congress. Congress, however, knew that they could not simply “raise” the federal drinking age, because there’s no such thing (federalism and the police power—remember?). Congress can, however, control how much money each state gets for highway/interstate funds from the federal budget.

Thus, Congress set a limit on budgetary expenditures—any state that failed to raise its drinking age to 21 would see a drastic reduction in the amount of highways funds ordinarily passed to it from Congress. South Dakota refused to go belly-up on the issue, and never raised its drinking age. After South Dakota was then given only a fraction of its normal highway fund, it sued. Long story short—and beyond this course, for the most part—South Dakota lost.

This case is an illustration of Congress using a budget to set a national standard over something it would not normally control. In other words, this is a prime example of nationalization.