One of the chief difficulties which arises in organizing a federal government of either type consists in discovering means by which disagree ments between one or more of the local govern ments and the central government as to the limits of their respective powers are to be dis posed of. The arrangement by which this object was sought to be effected in America, of which Toeqneville expressed his admiration, is thus explained by Mill: "Under the perfect mode of federation, where every citizen of each particular State owes obedience to two governments—that of his own State and that of the federation—it is evidently necessary not only that the constitutional limits of the au thority of each should be precisely and clearly defined, but that the power to decide between them in any case of dispute should not reside in either of the governments, or in any function ary subject to it, but in an umpire independent of both. There must be a supreme court of jus tice, and a system of subordinate courts in every State of the union before whom such questions shall be carried, and whose judgment on them, in the last stage of appeal, shall be final. Every State of the union, and the federal Government itself, as well as every functionary of each, must be liable to be sued in those courts for exceeding their powers, or for non-performance of their fed eral duties, and must in general he obliged to employ those courts as the instrument for en forcing their federal rights. This involves the remarkable consequence, actually realized in the United States, that a court of justice, the highest Federal tribunal, is supreme over the various governments, both State and Federal, having the right to declare that any new law made or act done by them exceeds the powers assigned to them by the Federal Constitution, and, in con sequence, has no legal validity." The tribunals which act as umpires between the federal and State governments naturally also decide all dis putes between two States, or between a. citizen of one State and the Government of another. The usual remedies between nations—war and diplomacy—being precluded by the federal union, it. is necessary that a judicial remedy should supply their place. The supreme court of the federation dispenses international law, and is the first great example of what is now one of the most prominent wants of civilized soeicty—a real international tribunal.
A federal government, then, is a body politic. composed of the people of several different, and in some respects independent. States, over which, in its own prescribed sphere, it exerts a supreme authority; while outside of that sphere the States and the people thereof are sovereign with in their respective jurisdictions. The character of a federal government varies with the extent of its powers. The first form of 'federal govern ment' established in the United States was that created by the 'Articles of Confederation,' adopted by the Continental Congress in 1777. The separate colonies, finding some form of central government indispensable to the effi cient prosecution of the War of Independence,. gave a reluctant consent to those articles, which, while the war lasted and all felt the presence of a common danger, worked tolerably, though nut without some embarrassing friction arising from notions of colonial or State sovereignty. lint after the independence of the country was established, and the pressure of a common danger no longer existed, there was a disposition to exalt the State and to depreciate the national authority, which to some extent was regarded as a burden. The National Government had no judicial tribunal to make an authoritative expo sition of its powers, and no executive officers to enforce its decrees: it was entirely dependent upon the voluntary action of the States for means to carry on its operations; so that, in the language of Washington, it was "little more than a shadow without the substance." and
"Congress a nugatory body. their ordinances being little attended to." There was, in short, an utter want of all coercive authority on the part of the Goverinnent to carry into effect its own constitutional measures. The embarrass ments growing out of this state of things were endured till 17S7. when a convention of dele gates from the several States was held in Phila delphia, "for the purpose of revising time Articles of Confederation and reporting to Congress and the several legislatures such alterations and pro visions therein as shall, when agreed to in Con gress and confirmed by the States, render the Federal Constitution adequate to the exigencies of the Government and the preservation of the Union." The convention encountered many diffi culties arising from diversities of opinion among its members, and from conflicting local interests, but finally succeeded in framing a constitution which the people of the several States finally ratified, and which, with various amendments, has continued to this day. From the time of its adoption different theories of interpretation have prevailed, and these conflicting theories have to a greater or less extent determined the char acter and aims of political parties. It has been contended on the one side that the Union was merely a league between the several States in their organized capacity', and that each State had the right, at its pleasure, of withdrawing there from. On the other side it has been held that the Union, instead of being the creation of the States, as such. was formed by "the people of the United States," acting, indeed, through their respective State organizations, but still as eiti ZPTIS of a common nationality. According to this theory. no right of secession on the part of a State has any existence; but it is the right and the duty of the National Government to main tain the anion by force. This question was brought to an issue in the Civil War, the slaveholding States seeking to exercise the as sumed right of secession for ilie protection of slavery. and the non-slaveholding States taking up arms for the defense of the ITnion. The re sults of the war are generally regarded as a vindication of the anti-secession theory, though there are still some disputed questions as to the relative powers of the National and State gov einments. See Articles of Confederation, under UNITED STATES; CONSTITUTION OF TUE UNITED STATES.
Other modern examples of federal government are afforded by the Dominion of Canada, founded in 1867 by a union of the provinces of Upper and Lower Canada, New Brunswick. and Nova Sco tia, and afterwards enlarged by the accession of the provinces of Manitoba and British Colum bia, the Northwest Territories, and Prince Ed ward Island; by the Commonwealth of Australia, established in 1900 by the organic union of the several Australian colonies of Great Britain; and by the present German Empire, which was burn of the sentiment of German nationality evoked by the Franco-Prussian War in 1870-71.
See CONSTITUTION; DEMOCRACY; GOVERNMENT; SOVEREIGNTY.
Consult: Mill, Considerations on Representa tive Government (London, 1861) ; De Tocque ville, Democracy in America; Bryce, The Ameri can Commonwealth, (2d ed., New York, 1899) ; Burgess, Political Science and Comparative Con stitutional Law (Boston, 18110).