Role of States in Reviving Constitutional Authority
Friday, September 18th, 2009
Founding Father James Madison, in his defense of the newly drafted Constitution and in an attempt to assuage the fears of many who feared “this [new] government is to possess absolute and uncontrollable powers, legislative, executive and judicial, with respect to every object to which it extends” and “that the power retained by individual States, small as it is, will be a clog upon the wheels of the government of the United States; the latter, therefore, will be naturally inclined to remove it out of the way,” [Anti-Federalist No. 17, Brutus] responded with the following:
- Were it admitted, however, that the Federal government may feel an equal disposition with the State governments to extend its power beyond the due limits, the latter would still have the advantage in the means of defeating such encroachments… Should an unwarrantable measure of the federal government be unpopular in particular States, which would seldom fail to be the case, or even a warrantable measure be so, which may sometimes be the case, the means of opposition to it are powerful and at hand. The disquietude of the people; their repugnance and, perhaps, refusal to co-operate with the officers of the Union; the frowns of the executive magistracy of the State; the embarrassments created by legislative devices, which would often be added on such occasions, would oppose, in any State, difficulties not to be despised; would form, in a large State, very serious impediments; and where the sentiments of several adjoining States happened to be in unison, would present obstructions which the federal government would hardly be willing to encounter. [Federalist No. 46]
