South Carolina State Ports Authority , the Court addressed the issue of whether state sovereign immunity extended to proceedings before federal agencies. The cruise ship company, Maritime Services, filed a claim with the Federal Maritime Commission FMC arguing that South Carolina had discriminated against it in violation of the Shipping Act of and sought, among other things, damages for loss of profits.
In reviewing the case, the Court analogized between the FMC's quasi-judicial proceedings and traditional judicial proceedings, while noting that "[t]he preeminent purpose of state sovereign immunity is to accord States the dignity that is consistent with their status as sovereign entities. Thus, while an agency remains capable of enforcement actions against states in federal court, it cannot use its own adjudicative process to determine whether to do so, but must rely on its investigatory powers.
It should be noted that in many instances, the federal government still has the ability to influence state behavior despite the constitutional limits discussed above. Considering the large amount of funds provided to states by the federal government, this represents a significant power for Congress to exercise. Further, as the concept of grant conditioning can involve waiver by the states of Tenth Amendment rights, these grant conditions may allow Congress to indirectly achieve compliance by a state in a way that could not be achieved directly.
The question of whether a state can be required to perform or refrain from certain actions was addressed in the Supreme Court case of South Dakota v. The state of South Dakota, which permitted year-olds to purchase beer, brought suit arguing that the law was an invalid exercise of Congress's power under the Spending Clause to provide for the "general welfare.
The Court noted that the grant condition did not implicate an independent constitutional bar i. Further, the court noted that the grant condition was not a violation of the Tenth Amendment, which generally prevents Congress from "commandeering" state legislatures and executive branch officials to implement federal programs.
The Court did suggest, however, that there were limits to Congress's power under the Spending Clause.
First, a grant condition must be related to the particular national projects or programs to which the money was being directed.
Second, the Court suggested that, in some circumstances, the financial inducements offered by Congress might be so coercive as to pass the point at which "pressure turns into compulsion," which would suggest a violation of the Tenth Amendment. In Dole , however, the percentage of highway funds that were to be withheld from a state with a drinking age below 21 was relatively small, so that Congress's program did not coerce the states to enact higher minimum drinking ages than they would otherwise choose.
Sebelius , however, seemed to suggest that an alternative line of analysis might apply in some grant condition cases. Following the enactment of the ACA, state attorneys general and others brought several lawsuits challenging various provisions of the act on constitutional grounds. As noted in Dole , the loss of federal funds associated with a grant condition cannot be so large that the withholding of such funds is coercive.
Justice Roberts's opinion in NFIB , however, addressed the slightly different question of whether a grant condition attached to a "new and independent" program here, the Medicaid expansion that threatened the funding of an existing program here, Medicaid violated the Tenth Amendment.
It is unclear, therefore, whether the NFIB decision was an application of the Dole analysis, or whether the combination of factors presented in NFIB suggests an alternate line of reasoning. Justice Roberts's opinion in NFIB held that, in the case of existing program funding being conditioned on the adoption of a "new and independent" program, the amount of federal funds at issue cannot represent a significant portion of a state's budget or its withdrawal will be found to be unconstitutionally coercive under the Tenth Amendment.
Justice Roberts did not identify a standard to determine what level of withholding funds would be coercive, or specify what kind of distinguishing factors were necessary to such analysis. It is not clear, however, whether the confluence of factors at issue in the NFIB case is likely to be present in future cases.
Few federal programs, for instance, even approach the level of state funding as does Medicaid; nor do there appear to be significant examples of grant conditions requiring creation of "new and independent" programs in order to retain funding for a separate program.
Consequently, the NFIB case may have minimal effect on the validity of existing or future federal grant conditions. It would appear that the status of the state in the federal system has been strengthened by recent Supreme Court opinions. Although the Court has not scaled back the federal government's substantive jurisdiction significantly, it has to some extent prevented the expansion of Congress's power under the Commerce Clause and under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Further it has created a variety of obstacles as to how these powers can be executed, forbidding Congress under the Tenth Amendment from commandeering the authority of state legislative and executive branches, and limiting the authority of Congress to abrogate state sovereign immunity.
Ultimately, however, Congress retains significant powers to influence state behavior, such as through the Spending Clause, and, under the Supremacy Clause, Congress may require the enforcement of its laws in both state and federal court. See, e. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records, and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof. This "Full Faith and Credit Clause" gives Congress what amounts to enforcement authority over the required recognition by each state of the judgments, records, and legislation of other states.
Article I, Section 1, of the Constitution provides that "All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States. Maryland, 17 U. To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
While the Fifteenth Amendment and the other voting rights guarantees noted above protect only against state action, congressional authority under this clause includes protection of the electoral process against private interference. A variety of enactments can be traced to this authority, including campaign finance laws and the Hatch Act insofar as it applies to federal elections. The House and the Senate act as judicial tribunals in resolving contested election cases.
To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District Implicit in the Fifth Amendment's requirement that just compensation be paid for private property that is taken for a public use is the existence of the government's power to take private property for public use.
Those materials which do address congressional control over commerce focus on the necessity of uniformity in matters of foreign commerce, although the drafters clearly intended domestic commerce to be regulated as well. Lerner, The Founder's Constitution Alexander Hamilton, Continentalist, No. Lerner, supra note 32 "The vesting of the power of regulating trade ought to have been a principal object of the confederation for a variety of reasons.
It is as necessary for the purposes of commerce as of revenue. United States v. Darby, U. See Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States, U. McClung, U. The Court failed to note that to some extent, the three categories are intertwined. For instance, the first category, the regulation of "streams" or "channels" of commerce, allows regulation of the creation, movement, sale and consumption of merchandise or services. But the initial extension of the "streams" of commerce analysis by the Court to intrastate trade was justified by the "effect" of these other activities on commerce.
See NLRB v. Similarly, the second category, which allows the regulation of such instrumentalities of commerce as planes, trains or trucks, is also based on the theory that a threat to these instrumentalities "affects" commerce, even if the effect is local in nature.
Southern Railway Company v. Thus, the final category identified by the Court appears to be a catch-all for all other activities which "substantially affect" commerce.
The Court rejected arguments that possession of guns in school affected the national economy by its negative impact on education. The Court has reiterated its concern over extending Commerce Clause powers to Congress in areas of the law traditionally reserved to the states. Army Corps of Engineers, U.
The requirement that a commerce clause regulation be economic or commercial has been influential in a number of subsequent statutory interpretation cases. In Jones v. Section i , which, in part, makes it a crime to destroy by fire or explosive a building "used" in interstate commerce. Applying the statutory canon that one should interpret a statute to avoid constitutional doubt, Jones v. The Court construed the statute to require that a building protected by Section i be "actively employed" for commercial purposes, id.
The Court held that this interpretation of the statute would raise serious constitutional questions, requiring, for instance, a close examination of precisely what activity was being regulated.
Absent a clear statement from Congress that it intended the Clean Water Act to have such a broad reach, the Court found the rule was not supported by the statute. See also Rapanos v. I, Section 8, cl. Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida, U. One plaintiff in Lane claimed he was unable to appear to answer criminal charges on the second floor of a courthouse that had no elevator. The second plaintiff, a certified court reporter, claimed she was denied the opportunity both to work and to participate in the judicial process because she was unable to access numerous county courthouses.
The Court cited congressional evidence that legislative attempts preceding Title II inadequately addressed the problem of patterned unconstitutional treatment in access to the courts. The Court held that it need not examine Title II as a whole when evaluating the remedy's congruence and proportionality to the injury of disability discrimination in access to the courts. The relevant inquiry solely concerned Title II's scope as applied to the rights associated with access to judicial services.
The Court cited as precedent for this limited application approach the Garrett case, in which it considered only Title I of the ADA for purposes of Fourteenth Amendment analysis.
Based on this narrow scope of inquiry, the Court determined that both the pattern of past discrimination in access to the courts and the failure of previous legislative attempts to remedy the injury were sufficient to hold that Title II is a valid exercise of Congress's power under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment.
As noted by Chief Justice Rehnquist in dissent, U. See id. Title II does not require states to compromise the integrity of public programs or make unduly burdensome changes to public facilities. Rather, states need only take reasonable measures to comply with Title II regulations. In National League of Cities v.
Usery , the Court conceded that the legislation under attack, which regulated the wages and hours of certain state and local governmental employees, was undoubtedly within the scope of the Commerce Clause, but it cautioned that there are attributes of sovereignty attaching to every state government which may not be impaired by Congress, not because Congress may lack an affirmative grant of legislative authority to reach the matter, but because the Constitution prohibits it from exercising the authority in that manner.
Justice Blackmun's opinion for the Court in Garcia concluded that the National League of Cities test for "integral operations" in areas of traditional governmental functions had proven impractical, and that the Court in had "tried to repair what did not need repair.
VI, cl. It should be noted that not all suits in which a state is involved is a "suit" against a state. In Tennessee Student Assistance Corp. Hood, U. In that case, the Court addressed whether Eleventh Amendment immunity extended to an adversary proceeding initiated by a debtor seeking an undue hardship discharge of her state-held student loan debt. The Court held that the proceeding did not constitute a suit against the state for purposes of the Eleventh Amendment.
The Court noted that the bankruptcy petition in question was an in rem proceeding, so that the court's jurisdiction was over the petitioner's debt, rather than over her person or the state. Thus, the federal bankruptcy court's exercise of jurisdiction over the state-held debt did not infringe upon the state's sovereignty immunity.
One apparent argument is that the Fourteenth Amendment was passed after the Eleventh Amendment and thus, unlike legislative powers found in Article I of the Constitution, it can be seen as an alteration of the restrictions of the Eleventh Amendment. However, as is discussed in detail below, the Supreme Court has held that state sovereign immunity preceded and predated the Constitution.
Alden v. Maine, U. Consequently, all the Articles of the Constitution could arguably be seen as altering the restrictions of the state sovereign immunity. Another argument made by the Court in Seminole is that the Fourteenth Amendment was designed to alter the pre-existing balance between state and federal power at the time of its passage. This argument is more plausible, but is still difficult to differentiate between Congress's power under the Fourteenth Amendment and Congress's power under the Articles of the Constitution.
Like the Fourteenth Amendment, the Articles of the Constitution were clearly intended to alter the balance between state and federal power at the time of the passage of the Constitution, which included state sovereign immunity. This is exemplified by the Supremacy Clause, U. The Court noted that "[there are] numerous common features shared by administrative adjudications and judicial proceedings. The proceedings are adversary in nature. They are conducted before a trier of fact insulated from political influence.
For purposes of Congressional apportionment, slaveholding states were allowed to count all their free population, including free African Americans and 60 percent three-fifths of their enslaved population.
Another compromise regarding the institution of slavery granted Congress the right to impose taxes on imports in exchange for a twenty-year prohibition on laws attempting to ban the importation of slaves to the United States, which would hurt the economy of southern states more than that of northern states. Because the southern states, especially South Carolina, had made it clear they would leave the convention if abolition were attempted, no serious effort was made by the framers to abolish slavery in the new nation, even though many delegates disapproved of the institution.
This infographic shows the methods proposed for counting slave populations and the resulting Three-Fifths Compromise. Indeed, the Constitution contained two protections for slavery.
Article I postponed the abolition of the foreign slave trade until , and in the interim, those in slaveholding states were allowed to import as many slaves as they wished.
Furthermore, the Constitution placed no restrictions on the domestic slave trade, so residents of one state could still sell enslaved people to other states. Article IV of the Constitution—which, among other things, required states to return fugitives to the states where they had been charged with crimes—also prevented slaves from gaining their freedom by escaping to states where slavery had been abolished.
Clause 3 of Article IV known as the fugitive slave clause allowed slave owners to reclaim their human property in the states where slaves had fled. Although debates over slavery and representation in Congress occupied many at the convention, the chief concern was the challenge of increasing the authority of the national government while ensuring that it did not become too powerful.
The framers resolved this problem through a separation of powers , dividing the national government into three separate branches and assigning different responsibilities to each one.
They also created a system of checks and balances by giving each of three branches of government the power to restrict the actions of the others, thus requiring them to work together.
To prevent the national government, or any one group within it, from becoming too powerful, the Constitution divided the government into three branches with different powers. No branch could function without the cooperation of the others, and each branch could restrict the powers of the others. Congress was given the power to make laws, but the executive branch, consisting of the president and the vice president, and the federal judiciary, notably the Supreme Court, were created to, respectively, enforce laws and try cases arising under federal law.
Neither of these branches had existed under the Articles of Confederation. Thus, Congress can pass laws, but its power to do so can be checked by the president, who can veto potential legislation so that it cannot become a law. Later, in the case of Marbury v. Madison , the U. Supreme Court established its own authority to rule on the constitutionality of laws, a process called judicial review. Should the president veto a bill passed by both houses of Congress, the bill is returned to Congress to be voted on again.
If the bill passes both the House of Representatives and the Senate with a two-thirds vote in its favor, it becomes law even though the president has refused to sign it. The president must also seek the advice and consent of the Senate before appointing members of the Supreme Court and ambassadors, and the Senate must approve the ratification of all treaties signed by the president.
Congress may even remove the president from office. To do this, both chambers of Congress must work together. The House of Representatives impeaches the president by bringing formal charges against him or her, and the Senate tries the case in a proceeding overseen by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. The president is removed from office if found guilty.
According to political scientist Richard Neustadt, the system of separation of powers and checks and balances does not so much allow one part of government to control another as it encourages the branches to cooperate.
Similarly, knowing that Congress can override a veto, the president will use this power sparingly. In a federal system , power is divided between the federal or national government and the state governments. Great or explicit powers, called enumerated powers , were granted to the federal government to declare war, impose taxes, coin and regulate currency, regulate foreign and interstate commerce, raise and maintain an army and a navy, maintain a post office, make treaties with foreign nations and with Native American tribes, and make laws regulating the naturalization of immigrants.
All powers not expressly given to the national government, however, were intended to be exercised by the states. These powers are known as reserved powers. Thus, states remained free to pass laws regarding such things as intrastate commerce commerce within the borders of a state and marriage.
Some powers, such as the right to levy taxes, were given to both the state and federal governments. The European powers did not want the United States to develop into a powerful nation, or to share their market, neither in the United States itself nor abroad. Constitution fully realized that a strong navy and land force could become not only a tool to protect the interests of the United States, but also a tool to force other countries to open their markets.
A strong army would definitely make the European countries respect their country. Apart from the foreign troubles, the leaders of the United States had also seen the serious influences of clashes between different classes. They believed that in time of trouble, a strong army would be decisive. They degrade under the human standard when the political situation remains steady; but when the society is in chaos, they would provide their fellow people with a great force.
The U. Constitution grants so many specific powers to the Federal Government, at the same time, lists a rather large number of things that the Federal Government is not allowed to do. Evidently, the framers were afraid that too strong a central government would easily bring about autocracy.
In order to restrict the authority of the central government, the framers wanted to make it clear in the Constitution that certain powers were emphatically denied to the Federal Government. Restrictions of the powers of the Federal Government are listed below: No exercise of powers not delegated to it by the Constitution. No payment from the Treasury except under appropriations made by law. All duties and excises must be uniform throughout the United States.
No tax or duty to be laid on articles exported from any state. No appointment of a senator or representative to any civil office which was created while he was a member of Congress or for which the amount of compensation was increased during that period. No preferences to the ports of one state over another in regulation or tax collection.
No titles of nobility to be granted by the U. No bill of attainder or ex post facto law to be passed. When the Constitution granted the Federal Government certain powers, the framers also considered reducing the power of the state governments, so that the central government could force the states to take unified steps if necessary. No State shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection laws….
No State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any duty of tonnage, keep troops, or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agreement or compact with another State, or with a foreign power, or engage in war…. With the prohibition of the states from issuing currency, the United States could now avoid inflation and depreciation of currency caused by unregulated money supply.
With the restriction of the states from levying taxes freely, the obstacles of the commerce were removed. Now the state congresses did not have the power to collect heavy taxes freely on goods from other states any more, thus the commerce in the United States began to thrive.
With the prohibition of the states from keeping troops in time of peace and engaging in war, the territorial integrity of the United States could be guarded, and the Union could be maintained. The society of the United States was being led onto a right path of development.
Although the power is restricted, the states still possess some necessary powers and exercise important functions in the United States. The Tenth Amendment of the U. Constitution indicates that the states possess those powers that are not given to the Federal Government or prohibited to the states.
Reserved powers are interpreted as the right to establish schools and supervise education, regulate intrastate commerce, conduct elections, establish local government units, and borrow money. All of these are functions that directly affect Americans every day and in every part of their lives. There are still some powers that both the national and state governments can exercise.
They are called concurrent powers, which include the power to tax and borrow money, to take property for public purposes, to enact bankruptcy laws, and to establish laws and courts. Thus in the course of the U. Constitutional Legislation, a federal system was created by separating power between two levels of government, state and national. According to the Constitution, the Federal Government was granted certain powers, the states were given certain powers and there were certain powers that they shared.
In order to overcome a series of domestic crises and keep a stable political situation, a strong central government was created. This central government was granted certain important powers while the power of the state governments was limited. Andrew Jackson: Veto Message. In The Annals of Anierica. Chicago, Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc. Gibbons v. Calhoun, John C. Wilson ed. O'Connor, Karen and Larry J. American Government. Webster, Daniel. Congressional Debates. Foot's Resolution.
Washington, In Gales and Seaton's Register, v. Gales and Seaton, Prigg v. Scott V. Munn v. Wabash, St. Slaughterhouse Cases. Bradwell v. Plessy v. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas.
Williams v. Roosevelt, Theodore, New Nationalism. In The Annals of America. Wilson, Woodrow. Constitutional Government in the United States. New York, Columbia University Press, Elazar, Daniel J.
The Evolving Federal System. In Pious, Richard, ed. Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science, v. Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service. Washington, Federalism, p. Baker v. National League of Cities v. General Services Administration. National Archives and Records Service. Office of the Federal Register.
Public Papers of the Presidents - Ronald Reagan Inaugural Address January 20, Washington, U. Garcia v. San Antonio Metropolitan Transit Authority. Report of the National Performance Review. Vice President Al Gore. Washington, September 7,
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