In this module, we continue to study the US Constitution, one of the oldest documents of its type still in continuous use in the world today, and how it affects the governing of the country as a whole. With the failure of the Articles of Confederation, the American Founders had to come to accept that a strong central government was necessary to make the young United States survive. However, the Articles of Confederation had been initially adopted because Americans had been resistant to the idea of strong central authority and valued their own autonomy of their former colonial parliaments-turned state governments.
The people of the United States still did not see themselves as "Americans," but more often "Virginians" or "Georgians" or "New Yorkers" first. With this, it seems obvious why a federal system that allows for both central authority and local authority to coexist was adopted. Clearly, this federal system has worked in the American experience as it continues today, but why? What were its advantages over a strictly national government or strictly local rule? What weaknesses does it have because it has to compromise between national and local rule?