Civil War Federalism

“Federalism is a system of government in which entities such as states or provinces share power with a national government. The United States government functions according to the principles of federalism.” Implied powers doctrine came out by the State of Maryland to block the operations of federally supported Second Bank of the United States. The state Legislature placed a tax on notes held by all banks originally built outside of the state. It didn’t speak of the Second Bank, the Supreme Court discovered that it could establish that this was the reason of the law, given that no other out of state banks existed in Maryland. The Supreme Court said no to the actions of the state by finding that the Federal Government held implied powers under the Constitution, it exercised by creating federal banks. Chief Justice Marshall wrote the Court’s opinion, referring to the political concept of the social contract to build the power of the Federal Government as given by the Constitution. Marshall saw that the Constitution couldn’t really address all of the certain ways in which the Government would fulfill the jobs to which it was generally obligated, but rather implied the functions which the government might take on to

Many Southerners felt that state governments alone had the right to make important decisions, such as whether slavery should be legal. Advocates of states’ rights believed that the individual state governments had power over the federal government because the states had ratified the Constitution to create the federal government in the first place. Most Southern states eventually seceded from the Union because they felt that secession was the only way to protect their rights. But Abraham Lincoln and many Northerners held that the Union could not be dissolved. The Union victory solidified the federal government’s power over the states and ended the debate over states’