Hobbes/Locke & Federalism One of Essay

So, who was right? Well, it seems that history has taught us again and again that in certain conditions, humans do express their evil and competitive natures (e.g. fascism, genocide, etc.); but that in other situations, the species can be incredibly giving and benevolent (think of Mother Theresa, people helping people). The complexity is that humans are not all one type or another, but a combination. Most sociologists believe that it is culture and society that form the basis for behavior. For example, the Kung! Bushmen of South Africa have no crime, very little disagreement, and understand they must cooperate for the good of the tribe. However, if we look at the Epic of Gilgamesh or the Code of Hammurabi, we find that the earliest civilizations had to provide structure and that evil nature was as much a part of humanity as goodness. The debate remains -- is the cup 1/2 empty or 1/2 full -- or is it both?

The Federalist movement surrounding the writing and eventual ratification of the U.S. Constitution focused on one basic premise: how much power and authority should the national, versus State, government control. Certainly, once can view that if the Articles of Confederation were deemed to be too weak and inappropriate for the new Republic, then the Federalist faction won. Rhode Island and North Carolina especially opposed the Federalist view, but eventually the Bill of Rights seemed to satisfy most of the delegates who realized that the alternative would be suicide.This did not stop individual States from wanting to secede long before the Civil War, and indeed, the actual finality of the issue of State's rights was not really solved until the mid-20th century, when the Supreme Court issued several decisions requiring that the tenets of the Bill of Rights be established in all 50 States.

If one considers the political issues of the Jeffersonian Era up to the War Between the States, then one might say that although the Constitution provided a legal means for a strong centralized government, that was on paper and States tended to act and react in their own ways to a point. There was consternation during the 1812 issues with the British, when new States entered the Union there were issues on whether they would be Slave or Free States. Thus, the Federalists really only had the appearance of victory after the Constitutional Convention, not the buy in and acceptance of the policy for decades afterwards......