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Federalism: Video Review
This video focuses on federalism, which is a crucial aspect of the United States Constitution. Bi Jean Ngo presents it at the National Constitutional Center in Philadelphia. According to this video, federalism refers to the system of distributing power amongst various government levels, namely, the national, state and local level. The national level manages issues that affect the whole country through its legislative, executive and judicial branches, while the state and local levels deal with issues affecting individuals. Like the national level, the state level also has the legislative, executive and judicial branches to deal with matters like education, and passing of laws that meet the state’s needs and values. Below the state level is the local level, which consists of the police, school boards and city councils that protect the interests of individual communities.
America’s founding fathers had a challenge of distributing power the way federalism does. Federalism is beneficial as it enables states and the national government to influence each other and at the same time prevents the enactment of oppressive laws since the federal government acts as a supervisor in some cases. For instance, the national government passed key legislation like the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act to protect citizens from oppressive state laws.
Before federalism, the Articles of Confederation outlined the US government structure.

However, these articles made the federal government weak and gave more power to the states, resulting in tensions between one state and another. The 1787 Constitutional Convention held in Philadelphia paved the way for federalism. This convention arose to address the issues with the Articles of Confederation. It took four months to come up with a system that could balance between empowering the government, protecting the citizens’ rights and maintaining state authority. This system is federalism.