Unitary System

• Centralized government system in which local or subdivision governments exercise only those powers given to them by the central government.

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Confederal System

• System of government consisting of a league of independent states, each having essentially sovereign powers. The central government created by such a league has only limited powers over the states.

Enumerated Powers

• Powers specifically granted to the national government by the Constitution.
• The first seventeen clauses of Article 1, Section 8, specify most of the enumerated powers of congress.

Implied Powers

• In the case of the United States government, implied powers are the powers exercised by Congress which are not explicitly given by the Constitution itself but necessary and proper to execute the powers.

Delegated Powers

• Powers granted by Congress to help the president fulfill his duties

Inherent Powers

• Power of the president derived from the loosely worded statements in the Constitution that “the executive Power shall be vested in a President” and that the president should “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed”
•  Powers inherent in the president’s power as chief of the executive branch.

Expressed Powers

• A constitutional or statutory power of the president that is expressly written into the constitution or into statutory law.

Concurrent Powers

• Powers held jointly by the national and state governments.

Elastic Clause

• The clause in Article 1, Section 8, that grants Congress the power to do whatever is necessary to execute its specifically delegated powers.

Police Power

• Authority to legislate for the protection of the health, morals, safety, and welfare of the people.
• In the United States, most police power is a reserved power of the states.

Commerce Clause

• The section of the Constitution in which Congress is given the power to regulate trade among the states and with foreign countries.

Dual Federalism

• System of government in which the states and the national government each remain supreme within their own spheres.
• The doctrine looks on national and state as co-equal sovereign powers. It holds that acts of states within their reserved powers.
• It holds that acts of states within their reserved powers are legitimate limitations on the powers of the national government.

Cooperative Federalism

• Theory that the states and the national government should cooperate in solving problems.

Picket-Fence Federalism

• Model of federalism in which specific programs and policies involve all levels of government – national, state, and local.

Categorical Grants

• Federal grants-in-aid to states or local governments that are for very specific programs or projects.

Block Grants

• Federal program that provides funds to state and local governments for general functional areas, such as criminal justice or mental-health programs.

Federal Mandate

• Requirement in federal legislation that forces states and municipalities to comply with certain rules.

Devolution

• Transfer of powers from a national or central government to a state or local government.

Full Faith and Credit

• Article IV, Section 1, of the U.S. Constitution—provides that the various states must recognize legislative acts, public records, and judicial decisions of the other states within the United States.

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Extradition

• One state or nation giving over an individual to another state or nation for purposes of criminal trial or punishment.

Regulatory Federalism

• A term used to describe the emergence of federal programs aimed at, or implemented by, state and local governments

Grants in Aid

• A subsidy furnished by a central government to a local one to  help finance a public project, as the  construction of a highway or  school.

Fiscal Federalism

• Federal government is responsible for handing down money to the states based on their needs.
• Assumes that a federal system of government can be efficient and effective at solving problems governments face today, such as just distribution of income, efficient and effective allocation of resources, and economic stability

10^th Amendment

• The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
• The Tenth Amendment was included in the Bill of Rights to further define the balance of power between the federal government and the states.
• Reserved Powers

11^th Amendment

• “The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.”
• Citizens cannot sue a state which they are not a member of.

16^th Amendment

• The 16th Amendment changed a portion of Article I, Section 9.
• The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.

Dred Scott v. Sanford

• 1857
• African Americans descended from Africans, therefore they can’t be citizens.
• Court rules the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional.