Essay Example on Founders of the US: An Intergovernmental Perspective

Thank you for your assessment of the definition of Founders from an intergovernmental point of view. I agree with you that the Founders refer to the writers penned as Publius in the Federalist [1]. I like how you familiarize me with the background of the Founders, and this shows that you have in-depth knowledge on the topic. Just like you, I believe that the Founders were under a cloud of a failed confederation of states that conducted it with an intrinsic desire by nearly all the Founders to have some form of the national government with authority. I concur with you that Hamilton and Jay wanted a strong federal government that had the authority to meddle in the affairs of the state. Just like you, I concur that Hamilton believed that a strong executive was proper for this new government claiming, "Energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government. A feeble executive implies a feeble execution of government" (Hamilton 1788). This is in alignment with the Arganoff's Top-Down Model of IGR, which even O'Toole (2013, 277) acknowledges did not win out during the debates. But even Hamilton's big government notion is not what we consider "big" today. I agree with your opinion that Hamilton found it laughable that the federal government could be anything that is addressed in the document (Lee, 2017). In Federalist #9, Hamilton used the solar orbit model of the states that revolved around the general government while retaining their separate status (Hamilton 1787).

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Just like you, I believe that the opinions of Madison were different from that of Hamilton. In Federalist #44, Madison concluded that the "members and officers of the state governments would have an essential agency in giving effect to the federal Constitution" (Madison 1788). Federalist #45, Madison states that "The State governments may be regarded as constituent and essential parts of the federal government" (Madison 1788). Just like you, I believe that the Madisonian view is primarily in line with the Network Model from Arganoff and McGuire's work (Arganoff and McGuire 2001, 676). Chief Justice John Jay said that it was essential to offer against the discord between the state and national jurisdictions, to render them auxiliary and relate them to leave independently and sufficiently combined (Schreiber 2005, 321).

Just like you, I believed that the Founders imagined a third check on government. The Federalists thought that the Christian spirit would review the evil desires of a man who would strive to use the authority as their arsenal. In Federalist #17, Hamilton presumed that the outmost latitude an individual can have for the love of power, he could not envision the worst in us could be gone as to develop a temptation to misuse the general government as a weapon against the states (Hamilton 1787). The writing to the Massachusetts Militia in 1798 articulated that, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other" (Adams 1798).

IGR Model Now

I concur with you that the Founders had views that culminated in a compromise of theories that land most closely with Arganoff and McGuire's Jurisdictional Model because some jurisdictions have a more significant number of interactions with actors in the intergovernmental system than others allowing them to be more actively engaged in intergovernmental management (Arganoff and McGuire 1998, 18). Just like you, I perceive that the jurisdictional model describes the degree at which local officials pursue actors and resources essential to serve the jurisdiction sufficiently (Arganoff and McGuire 1998, 6). Interdependences between actors increase the necessity for coordination and collaboration (Chisholm 1987, 44).

Just like you, I believe that the federal and local governments become reliant on the actions of one another. The local government might require federal resources though the federal government requires local resources (Arganoff and McGuire 1998, 7). The suggested model deals with the extent at which the local officials strategically liaise with the many actors for the motive of designing and administering policies (Arganoff and McGuire 1998, 5). When problems that affect the citizens emerge, their first instinct is to reorganize agencies or impose new procedures when the problem often has to do with organizational structures and processes that no longer fit reality (Kettl 2000).

Bibliography

Adams, John. 1798. "Letter to the Massachusetts Militia, 11 October." Accessed February 21, 2020. https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-02-02-3102.

Arganoff, Robert and Michael McGuire. 2001. "American Federalism and the Search for Models of Management." Public Administration Review 61, no. 6: 671-681.

Chisholm, Donald W. 1987. Coordination Without Hierarchy. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Hamilton, Alexander. 178. Federalist 9. Accessed February 20, 2020. https://founders. archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-04-02-0162.

Hamilton, Alexander. 1787. Federalist 17. Accessed February 20, 2020. https://founders. archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-04-02-0.

Hamilton, Alexander. 1788. Federalist 70. Accessed February 20, 2020. https://founders. archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-04-02-0221.

Kettl, Donald F. 2000. "The Transformation of Governance: Globalization, Devolution, and the Role of Government." Public Administration Review 60, no. 6: 488-497.

Lee, Mike. 2017. "How the 'Hamilton Effect' Distorts the Founders." Accessed February 20, 2020. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/05/30/senator-mike-lee-forgotten-founders-hamilton-effect-215194.

O'Toole, Laurence J. 2013. American Intergovernmental Relations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Madison, James. 1788. Federalist 44. Accessed February 21, 2020. https://founders.archives. gov/documents/Madison/01-10-02-0251.

Madison, James. 1788. Federalist 45. Accessed February 21, 2020. https://founders.archives. gov/documents/Madison/01-10-02-0251.

Schreiber, Harry N. 2005. "Federalism." In The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States, edited by James W. Ely and Joel Grossman. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.