State Government Vs Federal Government Essay

The largest compromise of the two, is known as “The Great Compromise.” The Great compromise is the middle ground that the delegates reached after much argument over two proposed plans. The “Virginia” Plan was better suited for the largest states within America. It favored a more powerful state government, Bicameral legislation and the number of representatives would be based on the state’s total population. Whereas, the “New Jersey” Plan was better suited for the smaller states within the union. It gave the power to a national government, favored unicameral legislation and gave each state an equal number of representatives. After weeks of heavy debate and much disagreement the delegates finally reached a compromise. “The Great Compromise,” combined the values and ideas of both the plans into something that they hoped would appease both large and small states. The Great Compromise awarded a Bicameral legislature and allowed the lower house to be determined by the population, while the upper house gave each state an equal number of

The relationship between States and their localities in many cases is strained. State government gives their local governments life, they create the laws for them. However, throughout history, state governments have not treated their localities as they suppose to. That is why the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) stated on the state-local relation “Legislators should place a higher priority on state-local issues than has been done in the past. The time has come to change their attitude toward local governments.” They want the state governments to see localities as partners in the federal system.

In the Unites States of America Federalism is the basic structure of the American government; it is the distribution and balance of powers between the National government and the States government. In order to obtain a compromise between those who wanted stronger state government and those who preferred a stronger national government the founding fathers arranged and settled for a federal system rather than the alternatives of a unitary or confederal system. While both National and State governments each have specific powers and authority, they also share certain powers and must be able to cooperate effectively with each other.

“Perhaps the greatest debate undertaken by the delegates to the Constitutional Convention in 1787 centered on how many representatives each state should have in the new government's lawmaking branch, the U.S. Congress. As is often the case in government and politics, resolving a great debate, required a Great Compromise.”(About) The Great Compromise that was reached by Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellsworth on July 16, 1787 incorporated the Virginia Plan and the New Jersey Plan in parts. It formed a bicameral legislature as proposed by the Virginia Plan. It also decided that the lower house would have representatives in proportion to population of each state. These representatives would be elected by the people. However, while deciding on the representation of states in the upper house, as per the tenets of the Great Compromise, each state would have two members, irrespective of its population.

`Great Compromise is first and the key compromise in united states constitution, which was facing a major issue like state represented by congress for two plans. There were two plans get together name also Connecticut compromise as well as those plans made legislative branch that bicameral two-house representative which each state representative of proportion in the state’s population and size. For example, large population has more representative small has less represented. One plan was the Virginia plan which represented by population and another one was the New Jersey plan which was made equal

The federal government and state governments have had a long history of powers struggles. The struggle goes back and forth between who has the right to make decisions and if there is a problem who should fix it. Sometimes it is better for the federal government to fix issues and during other situations it is better for the state or local governments to fix other issues. In the PBS special of the United States Constitution, Peter Sagal travels around the states documenting the various roles and impact the government has on the country as a whole and on the individual states.

Federalism was the first guard against tyranny. The central government and states both had their own powers but also shared a few. They had trading, conducting foreign relations, declaring war, making immigration laws etc. Local state governments got elections, establishing schools, passing marriage and divorce laws, and regulating in-state business. “The different governments will control each other and at the same time it will be controlled by itself,” said James Madison in the federalist paper #51.

Federalism is a compound way of governing, with a central government, also known as a federal government, and a local government. Each government had their own powers, but to accomplish the bigger goals the key was to have cooperation and teamwork to solve the issue. The federal government’s powers were solely focused on war, money and relations with other countries and states outside of the United States. In accordance, the local government took care of the more specific things going on in that certain state. For example, they took care of things such as elections, constructing schools, and passing laws for marriage and divorce. This helps to guard against having a government ruled over by a tyrant by having the more sizable powers given to the higher-up individuals in the government, and the locals governments dealt with the laws that pertained to their specific state. “In the compound republic of America, the power surrendered by the people is first divided between two distinct governments, and the portion allotted to each subdivided among distinct and separate departments” (Document A). The governments are ruled this way because if one government had all the power, they would surely use it unfairly, as all that power would get to their head. “Hence a double security rises to the rights of the people” (Document A). This would in fact raise the rights that the people had because they would have a

In the “Virginia Plan vs. New Jersey Plan” both plans called for a strong national government with 3 branches which led to the Great Compromise. The Great Compromise provided for a bicameral congress. The bicameral structure wanted to accommodate both large and small states unlike the unicameral which only included the small vote.

Before the constitution became the law of the land there was the Articles of Confederation. The Articles of Confederation was the first constitution of the United States, and the first form of government established by the U.S. Under the Articles of Confederation the government consisted of a congress of delegates chosen by state legislatures. Congress was also unicameral, or a single house legislature. Each state had the same amount of power regardless of size or population. The powers to make, administer, and enforce laws were all placed with Congress. The government did not consist of a President or executive branch, instead the executive power was spread among several committees of congressmen. The articles granted certain limited powers to Congress. The Congress could not raise money through taxes, therefore it relied on contributions from the states, which was not reliable. Passing laws required approval of at least nine of the thirteen states, and amending a document required approval of all thirteen states. Congress had no power to regulate trade between the states or internationally. There was no national army, so the government relied on the individual states to establish a military.

That is why there were many compromises during this time. The most famous of the compromises was the Great compromise. The Great Compromise took both the Virginia and New Jersey Plans and met in the middle. This was the start of the constitution and our new government plan. The argument was between large states and small states. The large states wanted to base representatives by population while the small states wanted all representation to be equal between states. Eventually James Madison with Benjamin Franklin’s help would come up with the Virginia Plan. The Virginia Plan stated that we were to have a bicameral government that consisted of the House of Representatives, that was based on population (what the large sates wanted), and the Senate, where all states had the same number of representatives. (What the small wanted.) with this bicameral government and the House of Representatives there comes another problem, how do we count slaves? Because the amount of representatives a state was given was based on their population any state with slaves obviously wanted slaves to count towards their population and any state that didn’t have slaves didn’t want them to count towards the population. The two sides in this argument were the North and the South. The South were the ones that wanted to have slaves count towards the population and the

The first way the constitution prevented tyranny was federalism. Federalism separated the powers between the state government and the central government. Local powers were given to the state and responsibility that were more general such as declaring wars and making laws that effected everyone were given to the central government. A few examples of the different responsibilities that were giving to the states were marriage, divorce laws, in-state business, schools, local government, and election for that local government (Doc A). The Central government handled the trade, foreign

The Great Compromise of 1787 settled the debate on representation resulting in the government agreeing to have the Senate equally represented by two officials for each state and the House of Representatives was characterized based on the population of each state. There were two sides to the debate: The Virginia Plan and The New Jersey Plan. Each Plan only benefitted one side or the other because both sides had a different portrayal of equal power. One wanted equal delineation for all, while the other wanted apportionment. The biggest obstacle was attempting to balance the power between the small and large states. The road to a balance of power was long and tedious. Despite the differences in opinions on how power should be divided, they did

The United States has a deeply rooted and embedded tradition through the Constitution of having a federalist style of governing as its structural framework for operating and guiding the government of the country. The form of governing is best described as a balance between powers of the central government and the powers of each independent and autonomic state. “Federalism is a system in which the power to govern is shared between national and provincial (state) governments, creating what is often called a federation” (Wikipedia 1).This style of governance has not been the only structure instituted in American history in order to implement civilized law and order among the people of the land. Prior to the