The changing federal-state relationship

The changing federal-state relationship

1. Westward expansion

   • 13 colonies - settlement spread westward from Atalantic coastacross the Appalachian mountains. To pacific coast.

2. The growth of population

   • Population grew from under 4 million in 1790, to 76 million by 1900, and 322 million by 2016
     • Needed management by a growing government

3. Industrialisation

   • Need for government regulation. Federal executive Department of Commerce and Labor was formed in 1903 before split into two separate department 10 years later

4. Improvements in communication

   • Shrank interms of accessibility as modern communication developed. Journeys that had taken weeks took days or hours because of roads, railways and aircraft.
     • Radio and television = instant communication and national identity

5. The Great Depression

   • States looked to federal government. State governments did not possess resources to reverse the huge leveles of unemployment, launch vast public works schemes or rescue agriculture from the effects of the dust bowl conditions
     • Roosevelt's New Deal - build roads and school and provide hydroelectric power

6. Foreign Policy

   • WW2 - superpower. Federal governemnt with jurisdiction over foreign policy's role increased

7. Supreme Court decisions

   • Enhanced power of federal government through their interpretation of the implied powers of the Consitution
   • Court applied a more expansive meaning to the powers allocated ot Congress in Article, 1, Section 8. Especially the 'necessary and proper clause' and the 'cmmon defense and gernreal welfare clause' and the commerce clause
   • mid 80s - more restrictive view of clauses, limits role of Congress
     • e.g. 2012 decision of National Federation of INdependent Business vs. Sebelius

8. Constitutional amendments

   • Post-civil war amendmetns
   • Section 1 14th Amendment can be interpreted to invalidate state laws