The Constitution: Centralizing or Decentralizing ?

On March 1, 1781, the Articles of Confederation went into effect. This was two years before the end of the Revolutionary War. Even though the articles still set up a small national government, there was a document that decentralized power and gave more power to each state. There was no national currency, Congress could not collect taxes from the states, Congress could not draft soldiers, and Congress could not control trade between the states.

The Federalists thought that this constitution was weak and that a stronger one was needed. In 1787, a group called a constitutional convention met and wrote a new set of rules. Alexander Hamilton and John Jay wrote The Federalist Papers in 1788. In it, they wrote about how a stronger national government would need a stronger constitution. The Federalists' wish came true on June 21, 1788, when the Constitution was ratified by the states after a long time of debate and voting. What changes were made, and did they move power toward or away from the center? The answer must be given to this question.

The Decentralizing Aspect

The Articles of Confederation were much more spread out than the Constitution. Both the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists had to make a lot of concessions to make the other side happy. The Bill of Rights was one of these deals (the first ten amendments to the Constitution). This was a list of rights that some founders thought were natural and that the federal government shouldn't go against.

From the Tenth Amendment:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

This made it clear to the Federalists that even though the states might not have as much power as they did under the Articles of Confederation, they would still have a way to govern themselves. Other amendments would also try to protect the rights of the individual. For example, the Second Amendment gave people the right to bear arms so that they could protect their rights to speech, assembly, and religion and fight against a tyrannical government.

In a letter to William Crawford in 1816, Thomas Jefferson wrote what he thought about secession:

If any state in the union will declare that it prefers separation with the 1st alternative, to a continuance in union without it, I have no hesitation in saying, “Let us separate." I would rather the states should withdraw, which are for unlimited commerce and war, and confederate with those alone which are for peace and agriculture. I know that every nation in Europe would join in sincere amity with the latter, and hold the former at arm’s length by jealousies, prohibitions, restrictions, vexations and war.

Even though each state still has a government, any way that power is taken away from the national government is a step toward freedom. In 1869, the Supreme Court ruled in Texas v. White that secession itself was against the Constitution because the United States "is an unbreakable union from which no state can secede."

This is the Constitution's biggest problem. Since it is the highest law in the country, any part of it that gives the federal government more power has more weight than any state law.

The Centralizing Aspect

Two major changes under the Constitution were that Congress could regulate commerce between the states and that the federal government would be the sole minter of money.

Article 1, section 10 of the Constitution states:

No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts.

This part of the Constitution would make life very hard for people in the future. The recession of 1819 was caused by the growth of money that wasn't backed by gold or silver. The recession of 1893 was caused by the growth of silver coins and certificates. Even the amendments can be broken. In fact, just ten years after the Constitution was signed, the Federalist Congress passed the Sedition Act, which made it illegal to publish anything bad about the government in writing.

The individual states couldn't do anything about this because of the Supremacy Clause in article 4, clause 2 of the Constitution. This clause says that the Constitution, federal laws made to follow it, and treaties made under its authority are the most important laws in the country. It says that state courts must follow the supreme law. If federal law and a state law conflict, the federal law must be used. Federal law is more important than even state constitutions.

Thomas Jefferson and James Madison wrote the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions in response to the Sedition Act. These resolutions gave states the power to get rid of federal laws they thought were "unconstitutional." Madison's resolution actually passed the state legislature, but it proposed the idea of interposition of the law. This means that states can stop the federal government from enforcing a law in their borders, but they can't get rid of the law completely.

But in the case Copper v. Aaron from 1958, the Supreme Court said that only federal courts can decide if a federal law is against the Constitution. In practice, only a federal entity, whose judges are chosen by the president and confirmed by a majority vote of a federal congress whose members most likely belong to the same party as the president, can decide if a federal law is unconstitutional.

Conclusion

The Constitution does not make things less centralized. It has not only shown itself to be centralized and biased in many ways, but it has also failed to stop further centralization and rights violations. The Sedition Act was not the last time the government tried to stop people from speaking out against it. Abraham Lincoln shut down newspapers that supported the South. The Espionage Act of 1917 made it illegal to criticize the United States' involvement in World War I, and the PATRIOT Act of 2001 made it legal to search, seize, and arrest US citizens without a good reason. In the end, those who want to get more power have used the Constitution to their advantage by ignoring it or changing it.

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