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Federalism and the Concept of Sovereignty
Unformatted Document Text:  FEDERALISM AND THE CONCEPT OF SOVEREIGNTY 2004 AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION MEETING DENNIS J . GOLDFORD DRAKE UNIVERSITY E-mail: dennis.## email not listed ## An apparently permanent feature of American society is the tension represented by the classic phrase to which most people rarely address careful attention, E pluribus Unum—"Out of many, one." One of the most prominent contemporary cultural versions of that tension is the controversy over multiculturalism and the reality of the melting pot. Here we see the question as to whether there is in fact a non-hyphenated American identity sim- pliciter—Americans—or rather only a collection of "hyphenated" American identi- ties—African-Americans, Polish-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Jewish-Americans, Irish- Americans, etc. In some circles, for example, one hears that it is appropriate to speak only of "the American peoples" as opposed to "the American people," thus dissolving the unum into the pluribus. Whatever the eventual fate of the multiculturalist version of the tension represented by e pluribus unum, there is another, constitutionally significant version of that peculiarly American tension with a much older and yet nonetheless contemporary pedigree: the rela- tion between the national government and the state governments encapsulated in the problem of federalism. As Justice O'Connor put this point, "our oldest question of constitutional law . . . consists of discerning the proper division of authority between the Federal Government and the States." 1 Where the Federalist supporters of the new Constitution in 1787 rejected the structure of union provided by the Articles of Confederation out of a fear that under the 1 New York vs. United States, 505 U.S. 144, 149 (1992). A decade earlier than this case, Jefferson Powell wrote similarly: "The history of the United States is in large part the storyof the American struggle to define the relationship between the states and the federal gov-ernment." H. Jefferson Powell, "The Compleat Jeffersonian: Justice Rehnquist and Feder-alism," 91 Yale Law Journal 1317, 1320 (1982).

Authors: Goldford, Dennis.
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FEDERALISM AND THE CONCEPT OF SOVEREIGNTY
2004
AMERICAN POLITICAL SCIENCE ASSOCIATION MEETING
DENNIS J
.
GOLDFORD
DRAKE UNIVERSITY
E-mail: dennis.## email not listed ##
An apparently permanent feature of American society is the tension represented by
the classic phrase to which most people rarely address careful attention, E pluribus
Unum—"Out of many, one." One of the most prominent contemporary cultural versions of
that tension is the controversy over multiculturalism and the reality of the melting pot. Here
we see the question as to whether there is in fact a non-hyphenated American identity sim-
pliciter—Americans—or rather only a collection of "hyphenated" American identi-
ties—African-Americans, Polish-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Jewish-Americans, Irish-
Americans, etc. In some circles, for example, one hears that it is appropriate to speak only
of "the American peoples" as opposed to "the American people," thus dissolving the unum
into the pluribus.
Whatever the eventual fate of the multiculturalist version of the tension represented
by e pluribus unum, there is another, constitutionally significant version of that peculiarly
American tension with a much older and yet nonetheless contemporary pedigree: the rela-
tion between the national government and the state governments encapsulated in the problem
of federalism. As Justice O'Connor put this point, "our oldest question of constitutional law
. . . consists of discerning the proper division of authority between the Federal Government
and the States."
1
Where the Federalist supporters of the new Constitution in 1787 rejected
the structure of union provided by the Articles of Confederation out of a fear that under the
1
New York vs. United States, 505 U.S. 144, 149 (1992). A decade earlier than this case,
Jefferson Powell wrote similarly: "The history of the United States is in large part the story
of the American struggle to define the relationship between the states and the federal gov-
ernment." H. Jefferson Powell, "The Compleat Jeffersonian: Justice Rehnquist and Feder-
alism," 91 Yale Law Journal 1317, 1320 (1982).


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