Federal and State Government
An Analysis of Powers in Federal and State Government
The debate over having a strong central government or strong state government in the early days of the Republic seemed to fall on the side of the states. But as the years have proven, the Constitution, which extended very specific powers to the U.S. government, has come to be interpreted in ways that would extend even more power to the central government than at first seemed possible or even permissible. This paper will show what powers are actually extended to the federal government (according to the Constitution), what powers are extended to the state governments, the power limitations of both, and the powers that overlap.
As Ellis Katz (1996) states, "The Constitution, as written and ratified, creates a system of dual federalism in which both the national government and the states are sovereign in their respective spheres of competence" (p. 4). Although today governmental power is far more centralized than in the early days of the Republic, the federal government was originally given only those powers that the Constitution specifically granted it.
These powers may be found in Article I, Section 8, of the U.S. Constitution. Article I, Section 8, grants 18 powers to the U.S. Congress. Specifically, the federal government has the power:
[1] To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises…; [2] To borrow money on the credit of the United States; [3] To regulate Commerce…; [4] To establish...
Constitution).
But the greatest of these powers is generally believed to be the power to collect taxes, regulate commerce, and declare war -- although, today, this last appears to have been appropriated by the Executive branch of the Federal government in the Office of the President of the United States. Moreover, the 18th power may be seen as a kind of "elastic clause" (Katz, 1996, p. 5) that extends the powers of the federal government in perpetuity.
In contrast, the powers that are extended to the States (by the Constitution) are simply stated in the 10th Amendment. The 10th Amendment…
