FREE ESSAY ON FEDERALISM

FEDERALISM

Federalism
When the revolutionary war was over, the American colonists had found themselves free of
British domination. Due to the fact that they were free from British control, they wanted
to create their own system of government where tyranny would be practically diminished.
Originally, The Articles of Confederation connected the separate states. But this
document gave the central government no power of it's own. Because of this, the states
had many problems in international politics since they had just found freedom and did not
have the respect of other countries. This caused a lot of thinking and it was decided
that a document needed to be created to strengthen the central government and at the same
time ensuring the safety of the states. So came to be the constitution. The constitution
brought about a division between the American people. These two groups were the
federalists, who believed that the constitution was good, and the anti-federalists who
thought that the constitution would not be able to protect the rights of the people. 
These two groups had conflicting views but together, they both wanted the same thing. The
same thing was that the people should control America by the principles of federalism.
Both groups, the federalist and anti-federalists recognized the fact that power was being
abused. They witnessed what had happened in the war and that their had been negative
effects of power and the result was very clear. British vocation had made them very aware
of the threat of corruption. Therefore, they wanted to make a government that would
ensure the duration of a just republic. The Federalists exclaimed that the constitution
was the only way they could reach this goal of a just society. As James Wilson had said,
the constitution would not give all the power to the legislature unless it was legally
written down to ensure power was not mistreated. In the constitution, it does allow
Congress to make laws that help out the government in the area of execution of foreign
powers.
The views of the anti-federalists were obviously different. They believed that the power
given to the congress was not safe since it put them too much in control. Hence they
created the Bill of Rights to establish justice, ensure domestic tranquillity and provide
for the common defense... The anti-federalists feared that the actual people would not be
fairly represented by their new government since they would have the power to get rid of
the individual rights of the people. The Bill of Rights claims it is for and by the
people. Especially since America is so large, it does not ensure everyone's opinion would
be heard. Many people did not like the idea of having representatives from each state
because one man can not bring forth many different opinions. Anti-federalists believe
that liberty only is present when there are few people and they can actually get their
voice projected. In a large population, like America, the citizens do not get
Individual freedom and are deprived of their rights.
Yet, Madison a federalist stated that in a small republic, tyranny could be much more
assessable since it would be easier to dominate others. Unlike in a large republic which
is made up of many views where as it is less chance that a few can dominate others. Even
in individual states it is easy to elect officials since people can be easily controlled
when there aren't many people. In other word, the more the people, the less chance of
bribery and inducement. Another benefit of a larger republic is that there would be a
variety of people representing them and there would be many candidates to pick from.
Ensuring the highest quality government. In a small republic, options would be very
select making it an unfair election.
Besides finding officials to best represent the people, there were many other
controversial topics that faced the American people. The topic of taxation brought about
many different ideas of what should be. The anti-federalists believed that by forming a
new system would be very challenging because that is what they know and use. The first
problem they found was that states would not want to have two state taxes. This is unfair
to the people. They also argued that a state tax was unfair since each state was
different with different needs. This could very well destroy a state economically while
other states are fine. The federalists believed that congress had all the right to have
direct taxation in ensure the safety of national security. The claimed that the
constitution was created to make sure the sovereign power of the states was protected.
The state legislature was responsible to elect two senators and the presidential
electoral process. 
As stated before, both sides wanted to create a country where the people's voice was
heard and tyranny would not happen, but the way to accomplish this was a conflicting. The
topic of power and who got what had torn America apart but soon enough, they formed a
perfect solution in which both views where united to protect the citizens rights.