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Federalism, a la Shmoop.

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Any time you and your sibling have gotten into it with each another...

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your parents have likely stepped into the ring to separate the two of you, and to get

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you both to play nice.

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Well, back when our country was even younger

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than...you and your sibling...

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...it got into some similar squabbles.

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What we as a nation decided to do, mainly

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as a result of the failure of the Articles of Confederation, was to engage in a political

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system known as 'Federalism.'

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Basically, control was to be split between both national and state governments.

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In other words' they both got to play with the new Xbox.

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There wasn't a strong centralized government in place before the Constitution was written and ratified.

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It was just a bunch of separate states, each minding their own business, and setting their own rules.

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So this idea of all the states being... minions, more or less... underneath the bigger umbrella

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of one national government... freaked some people out a bit.

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But... the whole "Articles of Confederation" experiment had gone awry.

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It was clear that the states needed a little hand-holding.

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Some people were able to recognize the positives, however.

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The 10th Amendment gave whatever powers that weren't in the federal government's control to the states...

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...so it wasn't like Big Brother was stepping in to rule over all with an iron fist.

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They were just trying to... divvy things up a little more fairly.

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It also provided a nice little compromise. No crazy, King George the Third types would be in charge...

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...but there would be no wussy, powerless government - like there was under the Articles of Confederation either.

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So, in order to outline an argument for the

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ratification of the Constitution and for a strong central government...

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...a few of our founding fathers; namely James Madison, John Jay and Alexander Hamilton,

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created the Federalist Papers.

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The Papers were published serially over the course of about a year, so American citizens

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were introduced gradually, rather than all at once, to the ideas of these three great thinkers.

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And you thought it was tough waiting each week for a new Breaking Bad episode...

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But while they swayed many minds, there were still plenty of staunch Anti-Federalists...

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...most of whom were in favor of a weaker federal government.

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They had done the whole maniacal tyrant thing already and were worried the door was being

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left open for such a thing to happen again.

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However, most of them eventually caved and went along with the majority...under the condition

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that there be added to the Constitution a "Bill of Rights"...

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This was back in the days when opposing members

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of the government could actually agree on some things...

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All the states eventually ratified the constitution...

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...and the federal government and the states lived happily ever after...

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Or did they?

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