" TRUE FEDERALISM" Encyclopedia Britannica defines Federalism as, "A mode of political organization that unites independent states within a larger political framework while still allowing each state to maintain it's own political integrity" (712). The first thing that came to my mind about the word Federalism was the idea of a way to put in checks and balances as a way of restricting governmental power and preventing its abuse. I regarded this as the most powerful form of government. The idea of separating powers among the various branches of government to avoid the corruption of concentrated power then falls under larger category of checks and balances. As conceived, popularly elected House of Representatives would be checked and balanced by a more conservative Senate picked by state legislatures. Separation of powers, makes an increase in governmental efficiency and effectiveness. By being limited to certain functions, the different branches of government become good at doing a few things rather than doing all of the things. I think the separation of powers was essential to prevent the consolidation of government and the formation of centralized, authoritarian tyranny to which all governments are prone. I like what Thomas Jefferson had to say about federalism. "What has destroyed liberty and the rights of man in every government which has ever existed under the sun? The generalizing and concentrating all cares and powers into one body, no matter whether of the autocrats of Russia or France, or of the aristocrats of a Venetian Senate. And I do believe that if the Almighty has not decreed that man shall never be free (and it is blasphemy to believe it), that the secret will be found to be in the making himself the depository of the powers respecting himself, so far as he is competent to them, and delegating only what is beyond his competence by a synthetical process, to higher and...
