The Ideological Origins Of American Federalism

Author : Alison L. LaCroix
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674062035
Total Pages : 321 pages
Book Rating : 4.30/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Ideological Origins of American Federalism written by Alison L. LaCroix and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2011-10-15 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Federalism is regarded as one of the signal American contributions to modern politics. Its origins are typically traced to the drafting of the Constitution, but the story began decades before the delegates met in Philadelphia. In this groundbreaking book, Alison LaCroix traces the history of American federal thought from its colonial beginnings in scattered provincial responses to British assertions of authority, to its emergence in the late eighteenth century as a normative theory of multilayered government. The core of this new federal ideology was a belief that multiple independent levels of government could legitimately exist within a single polity, and that such an arrangement was not a defect but a virtue. This belief became a foundational principle and aspiration of the American political enterprise. LaCroix thus challenges the traditional account of republican ideology as the single dominant framework for eighteenth-century American political thought. Understanding the emerging federal ideology returns constitutional thought to the central place that it occupied for the founders. Federalism was not a necessary adaptation to make an already designed system work; it was the system. Connecting the colonial, revolutionary, founding, and early national periods in one story reveals the fundamental reconfigurations of legal and political power that accompanied the formation of the United States. The emergence of American federalism should be understood as a critical ideological development of the period, and this book is essential reading for everyone interested in the American story.

Author : William H. Riker
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN 13 : 9400932731
Total Pages : 237 pages
Book Rating : 4.39/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Development of American Federalism written by William H. Riker and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The chapters of this book have diverse origins. They were written over the period 1954-1984. Several (i.e., three, four, seven, and ten) were originally published in scholarly journals. Several (i.e., one, eight, nine, and eleven) are excerpts from my previous books: Soldiers of the States and Federalism: Origin, Operation and Significance. And several (i.e., two, five, and six) were written for conferences and are now published here for the first time. Despite the fact that this history suggests they are quite unrelated, these chapters do indeed center on one theme: the continuity of American federalism. In order to emphasize that theme, I have written an introduction and an initial commentary for each chapter. These commen taries, taken together, with the introduction, constitute the exposition of the theme. Some of these chapters (four, six, and ten) were written with my students, Ronald Schaps, John Lemco, and William Bast. They did much of the research and analysis so the credit for these chapters belongs to them as much as to me. Chapter five is based quite closely on William Paul Alexander's dissertation for the Ph. D. degree at the University of Rochester, 1973.

Author : David Brian Robertson
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1136974296
Total Pages : 351 pages
Book Rating : 4.98/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Federalism and the Making of America written by David Brian Robertson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-03-01 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Though Americans rarely appreciate it, federalism has profoundly shaped their nation’s past, present, and future. Federalism—the division of government authority between the national government and the states—affects the prosperity, security, and daily life of every American. In this nuanced and comprehensive overview, David Brian Robertson shows that past choices shape present circumstances, and that a deep understanding of American government, public policy, political processes, and society requires an understanding of the key steps in federalism’s evolution in American history. The most spectacular political conflicts in American history have been fought on the battlefield of federalism, including states’ rights to leave the union, government power to regulate business, and responses to the problems of race, poverty, pollution, abortion, and gay rights. Federalism helped fragment American politics, encourage innovation, foster the American market economy, and place hurdles in the way of efforts to mitigate the consequences of economic change. Federalism helped construct the path of American political development. Federalism and the Making of America is a sorely needed text that treats the politics of federalism systematically and accessibly, making it indispensible to all students and scholars of American politics. Chosen as one of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2012.

Author : Max M. Edling
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780199705856
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.52/5 ( download)

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Download or read book A Revolution in Favor of Government written by Max M. Edling and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2008-07-08 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What were the intentions of the Founders? Was the American constitution designed to protect individual rights? To limit the powers of government? To curb the excesses of democracy? Or to create a robust democratic nation-state? These questions echo through today's most heated legal and political debates. In this powerful new interpretation of America's origins, Max Edling argues that the Federalists were primarily concerned with building a government that could act vigorously in defense of American interests. The Constitution transferred the powers of war making and resource extraction from the states to the national government thereby creating a nation-state invested with all the important powers of Europe's eighteenth-century "fiscal-military states." A strong centralized government, however, challenged the American people's deeply ingrained distrust of unduly concentrated authority. To secure the Constitution's adoption the Federalists had to accommodate the formation of a powerful national government to the strong current of anti-statism in the American political tradition. They did so by designing a government that would be powerful in times of crisis, but which would make only limited demands on the citizenry and have a sharply restricted presence in society. The Constitution promised the American people the benefit of government without its costs. Taking advantage of a newly published letterpress edition of the constitutional debates, A Revolution in Favor of Government recovers a neglected strand of the Federalist argument, making a persuasive case for rethinking the formation of the federal American state.

Author : Bernard Bailyn
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 335 pages
Book Rating : 4.75/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution written by Bernard Bailyn and published by . This book was released on 1976 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Larry N. Gerston
Publisher : M.E. Sharpe
ISBN 13 : 9780765616715
Total Pages : 216 pages
Book Rating : 4.18/5 ( download)

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Download or read book American Federalism written by Larry N. Gerston and published by M.E. Sharpe. This book was released on 2007 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Understanding federalism is central to the study of democratic government in the United States. This book examines the historical and philosophical underpinnings of federalism; and the ways in which institutional political power is both diffused and concentrated in the United States.

Author : Saul Cornell
Publisher : UNC Press Books
ISBN 13 : 0807839213
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.18/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Other Founders written by Saul Cornell and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2012-12-01 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fear of centralized authority is deeply rooted in American history. The struggle over the U.S. Constitution in 1788 pitted the Federalists, supporters of a stronger central government, against the Anti-Federalists, the champions of a more localist vision of politics. But, argues Saul Cornell, while the Federalists may have won the battle over ratification, it is the ideas of the Anti-Federalists that continue to define the soul of American politics. While no Anti-Federalist party emerged after ratification, Anti-Federalism continued to help define the limits of legitimate dissent within the American constitutional tradition for decades. Anti-Federalist ideas also exerted an important influence on Jeffersonianism and Jacksonianism. Exploring the full range of Anti-Federalist thought, Cornell illustrates its continuing relevance in the politics of the early Republic. A new look at the Anti-Federalists is particularly timely given the recent revival of interest in this once neglected group, notes Cornell. Now widely reprinted, Anti-Federalist writings are increasingly quoted by legal scholars and cited in Supreme Court decisions--clear proof that their authors are now counted among the ranks of America's founders.

Author : Samuel Hutchison Beer
Publisher : Belknap Press
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 504 pages
Book Rating : 4.08/5 ( download)

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Download or read book To Make a Nation written by Samuel Hutchison Beer and published by Belknap Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 504 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lyndon Johnson heralded a "new federalism," as did Ronald Reagan. It was left to the public to puzzle out what such a proclamation, coming from both ends of the political spectrum, could possibly mean. Of one thing we can be certain: theories of federalism, in whatever form they take, are still shaping our nation. The origin of these theories-what they meant to history and how they apply today becomes clear in this book by one of our most distinguished writers on political thought. The great English republicans of the seventeenth century appear in this story along with their American descendants, who took the European idea of a federal republic and recast it as new and unique. Samuel Beer's extraordinary knowledge of European political thought, displayed especially in discussions of Thomas Aquinas and James Harrington, allows him to show at every turn the historical precedents and the originality of American federalism in theory and practice. In deft comparisons with Hume, Burke, Blackstone, and Montesquieu, the familiar figures of Madison and Hamilton emerge with new substance and depth, while some who would seem fully known by now, such as Ben Franklin, reveal unsuspected dimensions, and others, such as James Wilson, are lifted from obscurity. Beer uses this history to highlight the contrast between the nation-centered federalism of the framers of the Constitution and the state-centered federalism of its opponents. His concern is not only with historical origins but, moreimportant, with a conflict of ideas which reaches far into our history and continues on to this day. The result is the clearest articulation ever given of the provenance and purpose of the ideas of nationalism and federalism in American political philosophy. A masterpiece of historical and political analysis, this book provides an innovative interpretive framework for understanding democracy and the American Constitution.

Author : Bernard Bailyn
Publisher : Vintage
ISBN 13 : 0307429784
Total Pages : 194 pages
Book Rating : 4.80/5 ( download)

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Download or read book To Begin the World Anew written by Bernard Bailyn and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two time Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Bernard Bailyn has distilled a lifetime of study into this brilliant illumination of the ideas and world of the Founding Fathers. In five succinct essays he reveals the origins, depth, and global impact of their extraordinary creativity. The opening essay illuminates the central importance of America’s provincialism to the formation of a truly original political system. In the chapters following, he explores the ambiguities and achievements of Jefferson’s career, Benjamin Franklin’s changing image and supple diplomacy, the circumstances and impact of the Federalist Papers, and the continuing influence of American constitutional thought throughout the Atlantic world. To Begin the World Anew enlivens our appreciation of how America came to be and deepens our understanding of the men who created it.

Author : Stephanie Mora Walls
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1498589456
Total Pages : 261 pages
Book Rating : 4.51/5 ( download)

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Download or read book American Federalism and Individual Rights written by Stephanie Mora Walls and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2021-02-15 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The protection of individual rights and the division of power between the national government and the states are core principles upon which American governance is built, but how well do these concepts work together and to what extent could they be at cross purposes? American Federalism and Individual Rights presents both of these founding concepts and explores their compatibility through policy-specific studies, including civil rights, education, marriage equality, and physician-assisted death. Written for anyone interested in American politics, the author presents all of the foundational information one would need to make their own assessment of how federalism works to either promote or undermine the protection of the individual in these policy areas along with suggestions for further study.