Fifty Sovereign Nations?
The United States is exactly what its name says: a group of states united together to form a single nation. But what are these states? Are they independent nations? Just areas of land with boundaries drawn around them? A state is a geopolitical unit that has sovereignty—the authority to govern itself. Mexico and China are states, but so are Georgia and Pennsylvania. The difference is, Mexico and China have complete authority inside their borders, just like all sovereign nations do.
Georgia and Pennsylvania could have had that, too, but they chose not to. After winning independence from Great Britain and basically becoming a group of sovereign nations, the states in the U.S. gave some of their authority away by agreeing …show more content…
In other words, if the Constitution doesn’t specifi cally give a power to the U.S. government or prohibit states from having it, then state governments (or the people) keep that power. Powers the states kept are called reserved powers.
What the States Gave Up
The list of powers the states gave the federal government in the Constitution are called expressed powers because they are directly stated. Even though states didn’t like giving up power, some things just made sense—for example, it would be pretty messy to have thirteen different states declaring war, so that power went to the federal government. Other examples include the power to maintain a military, make treaties with other nations, coin money, and make rules about who gets to be a U.S. citizen. Ultimately, the states tried to give the federal government only the powers that were absolutely necessary for a strong nation that could run smoothly.
One of the fi rst United
States coins
State power is a big deal because state governments are
The United States is exactly what its name says: a group of states united together to form a single nation. But what are these states? Are they independent nations? Just areas of land with boundaries drawn around them? A state is a geopolitical unit that has sovereignty—the authority to govern itself. Mexico and China are states, but so are Georgia and Pennsylvania. The difference is, Mexico and China have complete authority inside their borders, just like all sovereign nations do.
Georgia and Pennsylvania could have had that, too, but they chose not to. After winning independence from Great Britain and basically becoming a group of sovereign nations, the states in the U.S. gave some of their authority away by agreeing …show more content…
In other words, if the Constitution doesn’t specifi cally give a power to the U.S. government or prohibit states from having it, then state governments (or the people) keep that power. Powers the states kept are called reserved powers.
What the States Gave Up
The list of powers the states gave the federal government in the Constitution are called expressed powers because they are directly stated. Even though states didn’t like giving up power, some things just made sense—for example, it would be pretty messy to have thirteen different states declaring war, so that power went to the federal government. Other examples include the power to maintain a military, make treaties with other nations, coin money, and make rules about who gets to be a U.S. citizen. Ultimately, the states tried to give the federal government only the powers that were absolutely necessary for a strong nation that could run smoothly.
One of the fi rst United
States coins
State power is a big deal because state governments are