... the Bill of Rights. The Articles of Confederation (the governing document of the United States from 1781 to 1789) rejected a national government with broad, elastic powers by stating in Article II, "Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every power, jurisdiction and right which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the [U]nited [S]tates Congress assembled." The ... in 1801, for while Justice Chase was heavily pro-states' rights, Justice Marshall favored a more centralized federal system. In McCulloch v. Maryland, the Court addressed the constitut...

• Word Count: 5600
• Approx Pages: 22
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... York ratification contest. Their main concern was to show how the Constitution contained checks on Congress. Ironically, in the last half of the twentieth century federalism became the center of a Supreme Court controversy over the very racial segregation it had sanctioned in Plessy v. Ferguson. By World War II racial separation was a salient feature of the American South. THE IMPORTANCE OF ... FEDERALISM During the 1830s, nearly forty years after the writing of the U.S. Constitution and in the midst of the crisis of nullification, James Madison reaffirmed the centrality of federalism wh...

• Word Count: 952
• Approx Pages: 4
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate