and public health-as contrasted with the present system of extensive fragmentation." 2

4

This recommendation and others in the supporting reports on public welfare and Federal-State relations stimulated two lines of national action: first, a formulation of administrative procedures for greater uniformity of grants, and second, legislative proposals for block grants for health and for public welfare.

5

In 1949 officials of the U. S. Bureau of the Budget met with a committee of the National Association of State Budget Officers. Among the problems relating to improving Federal grants which were discussed were: (a) the advisability of adopting objective criteria for grant apportionment formulas giving greater emphasis to equalization, and (b) a block grant for public health services. State representatives urged that the grants-in-aid for control of venereal disease, tuberculosis, cancer, and heart diseases as well as those for general health assistance and mental health activities be consolidated into a single block grant in preference to the continuation of the categorical aid for each program. Consideration of this suggestion, along with the activities of this joint committee, lapsed with the outbreak of the Korean

war.

Federal agencies took steps during the latter part of the forties to review their grant programs in order to achieve a greater measure of coordination. The Office of Federal-State Relations of the agency which subsequently became the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare was asked to develop and coordinate policies, methods, and procedures concerning Federal-State relations involved in the various grants-in-aid, and other programs. The work of this Office clarified many of the detailed issues involved in Federal aid programs, and brought greater uniformity to State plan requirements.

Because of the interrelation of the grant programs administered by the Public Health Service and by the Children's Bureau, these two Federal agencies have worked closely together. In the fiscal year 1953, a joint State plan submittal was begun, and before then, a joint State budget, joint State fiscal reporting and joint statistical reports had been implemented.

In addition to these small but significant steps toward meeting the objectives of the Hoover Commission, legislative action was sought to achieve greater coordination. Prior to 1953, major legislative proposals were before the Congress to consolidate the categorical programs of public assistance and also grants for public health work. For example, in the 80th Congress and again in the 81st Congress an omnibus health bill, sponsored by the administration, provided for a single grant for public health services and called for a single allotment of funds to

Ibid., p. 36.

Brookings Institution, Functions and Activities of the National Government in the Pield of Welfare. Prepared for the Commission on Organization of the Executive Branch of the Government. 1949, pp. 164-168, 531-533.

Council of State Governments, Federal-State Relations. Report of the Commission on Organizaiton of the Executive Branch of the Government, 1949. pp. 134-136.

Committee of the National Association of State Budget Officers and the U.S. Bureau of the Budget on Grant-in-Aid Problems. Summary of Proceedings of Joint Meetings, May 10-11, 1949, and Aug. 30, 1949.

C.S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Education and Labor, National Health Program. Hearings, 80th Cong., first sess.

US Congress, House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce, National Health Plan. Hearings, 81st Cong., first sess.

This amount may be compared with Federal expenditures of somewhat over $2 billion in the years 1790-1860. The total receipts of the States during this period, including net borrowing, were probably on the order of $3 billion.

To particular States at particular times, Federal funds bulked large. In the 1790's, Delaware, New Hampshire, and Connecticut derived from 20 percent to 50 percent of their revenue from Federal securities, and Texas received over 50 percent from this source in 1851-60. Newly formed frontier States not uncommonly derived 10 percent to 20 percent of their revenue from their share of Federal land sales. The combined effects of Federal programs had a major influence in the States in 1790-1800 and in 1836-38. Otherwise, the Federal-State transactions were not important economically.

As we have seen, these transactions were related to State experiments with transportation and banking enterprises, and to the development of public education. The funding program helped arouse State interest in investing in earning assets. The 5-percent funds, the surplus revenue, and Federal security purchases all promoted internalimprovement projects. The surplus provided a major stimulus to the development of educational systems, and five States also received their 5 percent grants earmarked for education, totaling $1.5 million down

to 1860.

Whatever their immediate economic importance, these programs are of interest in showing the continuing attention paid to the problem of reconciling the superior revenue-raising ability of the Federal Government with the desire for local autonomy and self-determination in Government expenditures.53

B

53 See James A. Maxwell, The Fiscal Impact of Federalism (Cambridge: Harvard Untversity Press, 1946), p. 18.

FEDERAL-STATE COLLABORATION IN

THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY

UNITED STATES*

BY DANIEL J. ELAZAR**

FEDERALISM: COOPERATIVE OR DUAL

The operation of the American Federal system in the 19th century has been the subject of much discussion and some examination since the New Deal and the so-called "rise of cooperative federalism." It has generally been assumed that federalism in practice, like federalism in theory in the 19th century (which is here taken to include the entire period between 1790 and 1913) has been dual federalism, in which the Federal and State Governments pursued virtually independent courses of action during a period when government activity was, in any case, minimal.1

This essay is based on a study of intergovernmental collaboration in the 19th century United States, conducted under the auspices of the Workshop in American Federalism, University of Chicago, and financed by the Ford Foundation. The major product of the study is the writer's book, The American Partnership (Chicago, 1962) which presents the data summarized below in greater depth and detail. Particular acknowledgment is due the Institute of Government and Public Affairs, University of Illinois, which provided me the time and facilities with which to prepare this essay.

Dual federalism has been defined by Clark, among many others, as "two separate Federal and State streams flowing in distinct but closely parallel channels." Perhaps the best definition of the term was that given by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney in the name of the U.S. Supreme Court, in Ableman v. Booth (21 Howard 506), at the height of the era. of dual federalism, in 1858: "The powers of the General Government, and of the State, although both exist and are exercised within the same territorial limits, are yet separate and distinct sovereignties, acting separately and independently of each other, within their respective spheres." Dual federalism as a doctrine has been expounded at various times by Presidents of the United States (particularly while vetoing Federal aid measures); 2 by the U.S. Supreme Court (particularly in opinions restricting the powers of government-Federal or State-to

Reprinted from Political Science Quarterly, vol. LXXIX, June 1964, No. 2 **University of Minnesota.

1 This thesis has been most persuasively stated by George C. S. Benson in The New Centalization (New York, 1941) and Jane Perry Clark in The Rise of a New Federalism (New York 1938), and has been repeated by such eminent authorities as Arthur N. Holcombe in Our More Perfect Union (Cambridge, Mass., 1950). A variant thesis, which argues that Federal-State administrative cooperation existed in the early days of the Republic and was then replaced by strict dual federalism, has been advanced by Edward S. Corwin (inventor of the term "dual federalism") in The Twilight of the Supreme Court (New Haven, 1934) and in other books and by Leonard D. White in his great four-volume study of American Aministrative history, The Federalists (New York, 1948). The Jeffersonians (New York, 1951), The Jacksonians (New York, 1954) and The Republican Era (New York. 1958). 1 See James D. Richardson (ed.), Messages and Papers of the Presidents (Washington, DC. 1908), for exemplary statements by Thomas Jefferson. James Madison, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, Franklin Pierce, James Buchanan, and Grover Cleveland, among others.

80-491-67-vol. 1

3

act); by spokesmen for the South (particularly when justifying slavery, segregation, or secession); and by conservative business interests (particularly when seeking to avoid government regulation). The doctrine has been expounded as representing classic American federalism so long and so forcefully that it has been accepted, by students of American institutions and others, as fact.

The central hypothesis of this study is that the traditional picture of 19th-century American federalism is unreal, that federalism in the United States, in practice if not in theory, has traditionally been cooperative, so that virtually all the activities of Government in the 19th century were shared activities, involving Federal, State, and local governments in their planning, financing, and execution. The pattern of sharing in American federalism was established, in its essentials, in the first decades after the adoption of the Constitution. This study seeks to explain how that pattern has continued to evolve since then. Its central conclusions are that the theory of dual federalism was not viable when applied to concrete governmental problems in specific situations even in the early days of the Republic; that dual federalism when interpreted to mean demarcation of responsibilities and functions has never worked in practice; and that, while the amount of governmental activity on all planes in relation to the total activity of American society (the "velocity of government") has increased, the governmental activity that existed in the 19th century was shared in much the same manner as governmental activity in the 20th century. All this is true despite formal pronouncements to the contrary, made by the political leadership of the day who spoke in terms of demarcation but practiced cooperation.

THE ELEMENTS OF COOPERATIVE FEDERALISM

The roots of cooperative federalism are entwined with the roots of federalism itself. It was during the colonial period that the four elements which later coalesced to form the pattern of intergovernmental cooperation first appeared on the American scene. Among these elements were a federalist theory of government," a dual governmental structure, some specific cooperative programs, and some administrative techniques for intergovernmental collaboration."

These four elements of theory, structure, program, and technique can be traced through the subsequent evolution of the American governmental partnership. They were first combined under a general American Government by the Second Continental Congress after the declaration of American independence in 1776. Consequently, the patterns of intergovernmental cooperation that developed informally

See, for example. Collector v. Day (11 Wallace 113), the Slaughterhouse cases (16 Wallace 36), Munn v. Illinois (94 U.S. 113), Hammer v. Dagenhart (247 U.S. 251), and Ponzi v. Fessendan, et al. (258 U.S. 254).

The classic statement of the Southern viewpoint is that of Alexander H. Stephens, A Constitutional View of the War Between the States (Philadelphia, 1868).

5 For a discussion of this theory of federalism, see Carl Becker, The Declaration of Independence (New York, 1958), ch. III. Part of the theoretical debate over the nature of the British Empire prior to 1776 centered on specific cases of parliamentary agents engaging in unconstitutional unilateral action within the colonies rather than conforming to the constitutional patterns of crown-colonial cooperation as they were conceived by the colonists, though the discussions were not phrased in those terms.

For a discussion of land grants in the colonial period, see Mathias N. Orfield, Federal Land Grants to the States, With Special Reference to Minnesota (Minneapolis, 1915), pt. I, 5-30.

during the Revolutionary War antedate even the Articles of Confederation. That document, the first written constitution of the United States, implicitly provided for collaboration in a manner highly reminiscent of the then recently sundered relationship between colonies and crown, as it had been viewed in American political theory and as it was embodied in the structure of colonial government institutions. Even the programs requiring collaboration (defense, taxation) were much the same. With the development of a national policy of grantsin-aid based on the western lands in the Northwest Ordinances of 1785 and 1787, the creation of the Confederation-sponsored Bank of North America in 1784, and the general reliance of the Confederation Congress on State officials to execute its actions, the colonial techniques of collaboration were also embraced by the Confederation.

It is unquestionably true that collaboration under the Articles was overdependent on the actions of the States and often failed in practice. This was, of course, purposely changed with the adoption of the Constitution in 1789 and in the course of its translation into action during Washington's first administration. While the "intentions of the framers" are always subject to dispute, it seems safe to say that the Constitution is oriented to neither cooperative nor dual federalism per se. It provides for dual institutions, some cooperative programs, and a wide range of concurrent powers which can either be divided between the Federal Government and the States or shared by them in various cooperative programs. By and large, the decision of the American people has not been to separate functions by government but to maintain dual institutions which share responsibility for the implementation of specific functions. This "decision" has not been made through a prior conscious design but through a continuous series of specific decisions involving concrete programs. The continuing evolution of the theories, structures, programs, and techniques of the federalism that emerged from this process is what we today term cooperative federalism.

THE ARCHITECTS OF COOPERATIVE FEDERALISM

Just as the Founding Fathers did not perceive the future role of political parties in the United States, it seems that they did not plan on the development of cooperative federalism as we know it. The majority of the theoretically oriented founding fathers either viewed the federal system as dual and separate with the States having the domirant role and the powers of the Federal Government confined to those objects specifically enumerated in the Constitution or as one in which the National Government would have the dominant role while the States were to become relatively weak repositories of residual local powers.

The men who became the architects of American federalism did not view the Federal system as one in which there was to be either a perpetual struggle between the Federal and State governments for dominance or an irrevocable separation of their respective functions for the sake of amity between them. Avoiding the premises of legalistic thought, they did not view the two planes as rivals, but as partners in government who were to share responsibility for a wide range of