“What do we want from federalism?” asked the late Martin Diamond in a famous essay
written thirty years ago.
His answer was that federalism—a political system permitting a large
measure of regional self-rule—presumably gives the rulers and the ruled a “school of their
citizenship,” “a preserver of their liberties,” and “a vehicle for flexible response to their
problems.” These features, broadly construed, are said to reduce conflict between diverse
communities, even as a federated polity affords inter-jurisdictional competition that encourages
innovations and constrains the overall growth of government.
Alas, as Professor Diamond and just about anyone else who has studied the subject would
readily acknowledge, the promise and practice of federalism are frequently at odds. A federal
republic does not always train citizens and their elected officials better than does a unitary
Nor are federations always better at preserving liberties, managing conflicts,
innovating, or curbing “big” government.
Whatever else it is supposed to do, however, a federal system should offer government a
Perhaps the first to fully appreciate that benefit was Alexis de Tocqueville. He
admired the decentralized regime of the United States because, among other virtues, it enabled its
national government to focus on its primary public obligations (“a small number of objects,” he
1
Martin Diamond, “The Ends of Federalism,” Publius, vol. 3, no. 2 (1973), pp. 129-52.
2
Consider a simple comparison between some national leaders of the United States and the United Kingdom in the
20
th
and 21
st
centuries. While America’s federal system elevated such former governors as Woodrow Wilson,
Franklin D. Roosevelt, Ronald W. Reagan, and George W. Bush to the presidency, unitary Britain’s counterparts
to such consequential figures were surely no less impressive: Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher, and Tony
Blair.
3
To be sure, this is not the classic view of American federalism. “Shared functions” (the fabled “marble cake” as
distinct from a “layer cake”) are the hallmark of the U.S. system. “If you ask the question ‘Who does what?’ the
answer is…that officials at all ‘levels’ do everything together,” wrote Morton Grodzins in his famous book The
Federal System (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1966), p. 8. In a similar vein, Elazar held that the American federal
arrangement has been from its inception a cooperative “partnership.” Daniel J. Elazar, The American Partnership
(University of Chicago Press, 1962). My query is a normative one: not whether the “marble cake” (or
“partnership”) metaphor appropriately describes what American federalism actually is, but rather whether its main
implication—officials at all levels doing everything—is desirable.
2
Convention