Federal Constitutionalism - 9780415832397

State legislatures regularly and recurrently affect constitutional meaning. However, they do so not through legal pathways like constitutional amendment or judicial challenges but by passing resolutions that assert an interpretation different than the one prevailing nationally. These resolutions help rally popular and political resistance and, when successful, alter the wider political environment and constitutional culture. Despite the obvious importance of federalism to American constitutionalism, little is known about the political influence of states in defining the American constitutional order.

Through analysis of colonial practices, early American political thought, and case studies of state response to the Alien and Sedition Acts, the embargo crisis, federal spending on internal improvements, the national tariff, civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s, the USA PATRIOT Act, the REAL ID Act, and others, Federal Constitutionalism raises and answers the following questions:

• What is the origin of state participation in political constitutionalism and what function does it serve?
• How do state practices relate to Calhounian nullification and strong states’ rights claims?
• How has state participation changed over time as the strength of federalism fluctuated and politics nationalized?

Federal Constitutionalism offers analysis at the intersection of federalism and politics in the fullness of time. In so doing, it provides much needed insight into state involvement in political constitutionalism.