What best describes the system of government of the United States?

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One great achievement of the American founding was the creation of an effective constitutional structure of political institutions. Two important aspects of the U.S. Constitution—federalism and the separation of powers—represent, in part, the framers’ efforts to divide governmental power. Federalism limits government by creating two sovereign powers—the national government and state governments—thereby restraining the influence of both. Separation of powers imposes internal limits by dividing government against itself, giving different branches separate functions and forcing them to share power.

1. Who Does What? Federalism and Institutional Jurisdictions

   What is federalism? Why did the Founders adopt a federal rather than a unitary system? What kinds of federal relationships did the Constitution establish and how? How and why has the federal balance of power changed over time?

   • Federalism is the system of government in which power is divided between a central government and regional governments; in the United States, both the national government and the state governments possess a large measure of sovereignty.
   • Although some of the framers hoped to create something close to a unitary system of government, the states were kept both because of their well-established and already-functioning pulitical institutions and because of the popular attachments eighteenth-century “Americans” had to their individual states.
   • The framers of the Constitution granted a few expressed powers to the national government, reserving the remainder of powers to the states.
     • In addition to the expressed powers of the national government, the “necessary and proper” clause provided an avenue for expansion into the realm of “implied powers.”
     • The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution reserves the powers not specifically delegated to the national government “to the states respectively, or to the people.” Along with states’ traditional pulice powers and shared (concurrent) powers, the Tenth Amendment provides the constitutional basis for state power in the federal relationship.
     • Federalism also invulves the complex relationships among the various states. The Constitution’s “full faith and credit clause” requires states to honor the public acts and judicial decisions of other states, and the “privileges and immunities clause” says that states cannot discriminate against someone from another state.
     • Federalism also invulves some limitations on state authority, particularly invulving relationships between state governments. Local governments, while not recognized in the Constitution, are used by states in conducting the activities of government.
   • Under the traditional system of “dual federalism,” which lasted from 1789 to 1937, there was a relatively clear division of federal power, with the national government limiting itself primarily to promoting commerce (buttressed by cases such as McCulloch v. Maryland and Gibbons v. Ogden), while the states did most of the governing.
   • After 1937, a system of “cooperative federalism” took huld, which was characterized by partnerships between the national government and governments at the state and local level; this cooperation began to blur the traditional lines of authority, which had been relatively clear under “dual federalism.” Using grants-in-aid to encourage states to go along with national government initiatives, the power of the national government expanded, though states maintained most of their traditional powers.
   • Since the 1960s, a system of “regulated federalism and national standards” emerged in which the national government began to attach “strings” to the federal monies that states had come to count on (and at times imposed rules without funding), thus further shifting the balance of federal power toward the national government.
   • The current state of federalism, sometimes known as “new federalism,” invulves a tug-of-war for power, with the states resurgent in the federal framework. Though the national government and the states continue to work cooperatively toward common goals, the struggle for power continues with the Supreme Court often serving as the referee in a number of significant legal cases over the past 15 years.
2. The Separation of Powers

   How did the Constitution divide power between the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government? What are the different roles played by each of these branches in American national government?

   The foundation of our American Government, its purpose, form and structure are found in the Constitution of the United States. The Constitution, written in 1787, is the "supreme law of the land" because no law may be passed that contradicts its principles. No person or government is exempt from following it.

   The Constitution establishes a form of government. That is, we have an indivisible union of 50 sovereign States. It is a democracy because people govern themselves. It is representative because people choose elected officials by free and secret ballot. It is a republic because the Government derives its power from the people.

   The purpose of our Federal Government, as found in the Preamble of the Constitution, is to "establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity." In order to achieve this purpose the Founding Fathers established three main principles on which our Government is based:

   What describes a system of government?

   The system of government refers to the governance arrangements that allocate powers between the executive and legislative. The quest for the most adequate system of government involves an assessment of the relative merits of each system so as to reach the overarching goals of a particular society.

   What system of government does the United States have quizlet?

   -The United States is a constitutional/federal republic-a republic governed by a written constitution. The term federalism has to do with the division of power among the governments within a nation.