How has the legacy of slavery shaped the nature of American federalism?

Answer 1

Nice exam question.

The original Constitution granted limited powers to the federal government. Prior to the Civil War, the traditional understanding was that the civil rights covered by the U.S. Constitution were only protections against actions by the national government. If you wanted protection from the state governments, you needed to look (for the most part) to the state constitutions.

The dispute over slavery led to the Civil War. In the aftermath of the Civil War, many of the slave states tried to adopt restrictions on the freed slaves that those in the states that stayed loyal to the Union saw as "slavery light." In response, a series of Constitutional Amendments were enacted for the purpose of extending federal constitutional protections to the newly freed slaves against state governments. In addition, these Amendments gave power to the national government to enact laws to enforce those protections.

In short, the legacy of slavery played a key role in a vast expansion of the power of the national government (both judicially and legislatively). Our Constitutional structure of federalism is not the same one that was adopted in 1789 when the goal was to give the federal government a very minimal amount of power. Instead, we have one in which the federal Constitution is designed to help keep the states in line with national policies (in some areas).

For more information, you can compare the writings in the Federalist on the superior powers of the States under the new Constitution with the debates on the Freeman Statutes and the Fourteenth Amendment during the Reconstruction Congresses. It is a clear change in philosophy from the States as the guardians of liberty to the Federal Government as the sole guardian of liberty.

Answer 2

The people that are for federalism use that as evidence of their moral superiority to the states' rights crowd, and the states' rights crowd view the federal behavior toward the former slave states in the post-war south as proof that the anti-federalists were correct in their mistrust of federalism.