Lee Hamilton How Congress Works And Why You Should Care Analysis

EXPLANATION OF THE KEY TERM The key term that I have chosen is “federalism.” In Lee Hamilton’s How Congress Works and Why You Should Care, he initially begins discussing federalism in the section named “Why Federalism Works.” To begin, Hamilton begins to reminisce on his experience in Congress and gives a brief and rather broad explanation to it, but he he goes on to use an example that is more relatable to the average person: 7th grade Civics class. Hamilton’s explanation of federalism is rather simple: a layered cake; the local government being the bottom layer, the state-level government in the middle and finally, the federal government at the very top of the cake. (Hamilton 2004.) This, of course, is just a simple representation of federalism. However, he elaborates that it is indeed more complicated in actual

Monk, a Constitutional scholar. Monk, in this article, writes on essentially what federalism is and the history of it in regards to the United States constitution. Federalism, by Monk’s standards and definition is …”the sharing of power between national and state governments.” (Monk n.d.)

In the opening lines, Monk states that the word “federalism” is not mentioned at all in the constitution that we know today, and by assumption the original constitution - the Article of Confederation. (Monk n.d.)

Throughout her article, Monk elaborates on how federalism became one of the founding principles in American government; dating as far back as the thirteen colonies at the start of American history. As she states, in 1776 “... the newly independent states acted like 13 quarreling brothers and sisters.” Which, upon further explanation, makes sense. Each state wanted their own powers that would be greater than their counterparts. This, of course, is where the Articles of Confederation came into play. And this was by no means a perfect fix, though it lasted until the late