The Commission on intergovernmental relations Page: 34
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est federal system. It has met the test of civil war. It has
accommodated vast territorial expansion to the significant principle
that the new States shall enjoy constitutional equality with
the old. It has furnished a governmental environment compatible
with unparalleled economic growth and social advances. It
has shouldered an increased degree of responsibility for social
security and welfare. It has enabled the mustering of resources
for waging two world wars and developing atomic energy.
At the same time, it has preserved a degree of local autonomy
unmatched among the world's other great powers. The States
make their own constitutions, and the laws that govern elections,
crimes, property, contracts, torts, domestic relations, and the like.
Most States in their turn have tended in practice to establish a
virtually federal division of powers and responsibilities between
themselves, their counties, and their municipalities. This autonomy
has kept under local controls most of the schools, the police,
the ordinary administration of criminal and civil justice, the local
taxes, and the provision of most municipal services. It has kept
in local hands also the machinery of elections and with it, in the
main, the control of the party system. It has enabled local
option to prevail on a wide range of domestic concerns. It has
furnished local bases of power and refuge for political leaders,
parties, and policies in opposition to those for the time being
dominant in Washington. It has made possible a large degree
of popular participation and consent.
These are results-most citizens would call them achievements-in
keeping with the original purposes, as set forth in
the Preamble to the Constitution. With the passage of the years,
the federal division of powers has involved a highly complex
distribution of governmental tasks and responsibilities. Because
the results are generally approved, the system itself enjoys
high prestige. But approval in general should not necessarily
imply endorsement of all the details of a going system. Where
the problem of our federal system once appeared to be one of
creating sufficient strength and authority in the National Government,
today contrary concerns have aroused anxiety. The
National Government now has within its reach authority well
beyond what it requires for ordinary use; forbearance in the
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United States. Commission on Intergovernmental Relations. The Commission on intergovernmental relations, book, June 1955; Washington, D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc1051/m1/48/: accessed March 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.