Olivia DavisonChapter 3 EssayTo understand American Federalism today, it is important to understand the history of the origin of federalism. Federalism as defined in our text sates that it is a strong political system establishing a strong central government. Initially, before the mentioning in the US constitution, there were people arguing at both sides of the spectrum that wanted either a confederacy or requesting that America was run under a strong national government. These alternatives to the federalism movement are known to be unitary systems and confederations. Many also believed that investing the majority of powers in the states would be the only solution to recovering American independence. As we have learned, unitary governments are much more widespread than federations and confederations. A unitary government stems from lower level governments (counties) are dependent on the national government for all authority and resources. What differentiates a unitary government from federalism is that it’s authority and remains in thehands of the national government. As for a confederation, the lack of independence is the most problematic in this type of system of government. With the states granted power of being able to veto over national legislation ends up stripping the national government the authority to act accordingly for one nation. What makes federalism successful in this country is the happy medium of granting the executive its power but also the states a significant amount of power as well. Throughout history, America has seen federalism defined in several ways including dual federalism and shared federalism. Dual federalism is assuming that the two levels of governments are functioning separately known as being ‘spheres of sovereignty.’ Shared federalism recognizes the two levels of governments are essentially partnering with each other while each type has different authority over different matters. The United States ultimately moved to shared federalism because of the importance of national authority. Shared federalism contains three parts; national and state governments undertake functions jointly rather than exclusively, and that power is not densely concentrated at either government level or