by Roger Prather

Created on: November 26, 2008

Election-day interviews with supporters of Barack Obama reveal an unsettling lack of knowledge and issue-awareness in the American electorate. Questions as simple and unbiased as "Which political party controls congress?" draw blank stares and uninformed guesses. This lack of awareness is not just indicative of voter ignorance, but reveals a widespread vacuum of civic knowledge in the United States. Now, more than ever before, Americans do not understand their government and the issues and ideas affecting it. In no area is this more evident than in understanding the relationship between local and national government - an understanding which requires little more than some background in the subjects of federalism, republicanism, and jurisdiction.

In the previous paragraph, the phrase national government was used instead of federal government. This was done on purpose because, technically, there is no such thing as the Federal Government in the United States. Instead, it is correct to say that the United States has a national government in a federal relationship with 50 state governments. Federalism is a system of governance that describes a government in which power is shared by a central authority and any number of affiliated de-centralized authorities. The term federalism makes no inherent assertions as to the details of shared power. For example, it is not necessarily the case that the central authority will be the more powerful entity. The United States, Brazil, Canada, and the European Union are all federal systems, each with their own unique attributes. In the United States, the federal system is created in the U.S. Constitution. Each state in the union is recognized as a sovereign state with its own autonomous authority and jurisdiction. However, since the Constitution functions in part as a compact between autonomous, sovereign states, some concessions are made. States in the United States give up some rights and privileges. In the Constitution, powers and duties of national import were, for the most part, reserved to the national government. The United States has authority over interstate commerce, bankruptcy, international trade, and national defense; the states traditionally exercise authority in more local matters such as education, criminal laws, transportation, and civil procedures. On the other hand, the Constitution is very clear in the Tenth Amendment saying that all powers not given to the United States are reserved to the states. With this arrangement,

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