Why Article 4 of the US Constitution matters

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the US Constitution is made up of seven articles or sections and article four plays a critical role in defining the relationship between the states and the federal government it outlines the framework for cooperation among the states and ensures that the rights and responsibilities of each state are respected across state lines for many people Article 4 is the Forgotten section of the US Constitution and it really shouldn’t be most people know Article 1 pertains to the legislative branch and lawmaking process article two is about the executive branch and the role of the president and article three vaguely almost mysteriously discusses the judicial branch and Supreme Court Article 4 on the other hand is like the end of an episode of Unsolved Mystery if you or anyone you know has information of the whereabouts of article 4 of the US Constitution or what it pertains to write to us at but it’s not so mysterious when you think about what the framers of the Constitution were trying to set up let’s go back in time the year is 1787 and the US has officially been a nation for just over a decade and things aren’t going so great actually that’s an understatement things are going very badly and a lot of that has to do with the very weak central government set up by the first governing document of the nation the Articles of Confederation look this thing was a train wreck under the article’s Confederation we only had one branch of government which was the legislative branch that means no president and no Supreme Court let that sink in for a minute only a lawmaking body with no leader to enforce laws that’s like writing the rule take one on a bowl of Halloween candy and just leaving it on your doorstep with no one to enforce the rule we all know how that turns out remember the writing of the US Constitution was the hail marry of a failing Confederacy the last attempt to save a sinking ship of a Nation from crumbling under unpaid War debts Rising inflation and the lack of a standing army so Along Comes this plan to beef up the central government adding power to the legislative branch because that was the only branch of government under the Articles of Confederation and then adding two other branches the executive and judicial so that the central government had authority to make states do things like pay their taxes and respect the laws of other states remember states were pretty unfriendly to one another before The Constitution under the Articles of Confederation it was common for states to impose heavy taxes on other states Goods they also had trouble converting one another’s currency I mean how many Massachusetts dollars equals a New York Dollar anyways they could refuse to recognize legal documents from one another and if disputes really got out of hand could declare war on one another so yeah giving the central government more power to make the states behave was needed for this new struggling Nation to actually survive but there was a concern for what would happen to the states would they no longer have authority over anything with this new constitution would this be tyranny again from an impressively strong government well Article 4 of The Constitution helps answer these questions and many more it’s broken down into four sections so let’s do a quick rundown section one known as the Full Faith and Credit Clause mandates that each state must recognize the public acts records and judicial proceedings of every other state in other words if you’re legally married in one state you’re married everywhere section two deals with privileges and immunities this section ensures that citizens of each state are entitled to the same privileges and immunities as citizens of other states it means for example that a person moving from one state to another should be treated fairly and equally a state couldn’t make a law or enforce one that treats someone from another state in an unfair way article 4 section 2 would make this law unconstitutional section three covers new States and territories it outlines the process for admitting new States into the union and governs the creation of new States from existing ones 37 states have been admitted to the US under Article 4 Vermont was the first in 1791 Hawaii the most recent in 1959 now Most states were first organized by Congress as Federal territories before they were admitted as States but Article 4 doesn’t require this take Texas for example which was an independent republic before it was annexed by the US and admitted as a state in 1845 finally section four addresses the guarantee Clause it ensures that every state will have a republican form of government and be protected against Invasion and domestic violence this Clause underscores the federal government’s role in maintaining order and democracy making sure all states have the same or similar form of government and that the central government will protect the states against Invasion the main purpose of article 4 is about States and how they should behave specifically with each other but Article 4 also establishes the concept of federalism and in this system of government this Central and State governments share powers and responsibilities a key point is that they share Powers not that those powers are equal this is a pretty common misconception about the federal system of government and one that you don’t want to make so when Article 4 says that states are guaranteed to be protected from Invasion this is defining powers that are specific to the central government but Federal systems of government also give powers to the state governments allowing them to manage more local responsibilities now if I ask asked you which government do you think has more total powers and responsibilities which would you think it is well I just told you that they’re not equal so throw that answer out and it’s not the federal government state governments actually have more powers and responsibilities than the central government and it makes sense when you think about it so the central government is greatly concerned with big picture stuff like defending the nation International Affairs coining money and citizenship these issues are so critical and so important that the central government feels no one else should be doing this and rightly so things could go very badly if States could coin their own money or declare war on other countries so for powers that are dedicated only for the central government we call these enumerated powers and enumerated essentially means that they’re listed or written down somewhere that being the Constitution of the United States because it is written there it is for the central government and no one else but aside from these major responsibilities the central government is much less concerned with everything else leaving the majority of the responsibilities for the state governments to take care of that means everything else is handled by the states powers that are only for state governments are known as reserved powers this list is the best example of reserved powers but man are there a lot of them think about it if it’s not written in the Constitution and there’s only four or five powers powers that are written in the constitution for the central government only then it’s saved or reserved for the states to handle and that’s a lot of things now reserved powers is more in reference to the 10th Amendment or change to the Constitution but we might as well talk about it right now in the 10th Amendment it mentions that if a power is not specifically given to the central government and it’s not specifically prohibited for the states to do then this is a power that is saved or reserved for the states so the 10th Amendment is basically defining this federal system of government without actually using the word federalism you know come to think of it Article 4 of The Constitution also does not mention the word federalism okay so here’s another question for you if Article 4 of The Constitution sets up the Federal system is the 10th Amendment redundant the answer is yes and no remember in order to ratify the Constitution of the United States the Anti-Federalists the ones who were not so happy about what they saw in the document of his powerful central government wanted some assurances they wanted some guarantees that there would be some changes made to reduce the power of the central government so the Federalist promised to make a list of changes we call them the Bill of Rights right the first 10 amendments or changes to the Constitution that would further limit the power of the government by giving the individuals more rights the the 10th Amendment simply pumps up the power of the states and guarantees that they will have their own authority concerning matters that are saved or reserved for states only okay that’s the end of The Detour shall we continue there’s really only one other thing to mention about Article 4 and that’s the fact that the Central and state governments can also share a power these shared powers are known as concurrent powers the best example I can give of a concurrent power would be the power to tax this is not a power that solely belongs to the central government or solely belong to the state government both of these governments need to do these things in order to fund their government responsibilities so there you have it Article 4 sets out to explain how State should behave with one another it establishes a federal system by stating the central government will take care of the big picture stuff leaving most everything else up to the state governments and by doing so reinforces the concept of limited government which is what we love here in America okay I can see it in your eyes you’re wondering how does establishing a federal system actually limit the power of the government when we take all of the powers that a government can do and we divide it we’re actually reducing the power of both if you can imagine taking all of the powers of the central government and the powers of the state governments and combining them all of a sudden we have a very authoritative very powerful government and this is something that we don’t want a federal system inherently limits the power of the government simply by dividing the powers between the federal or central government and state governments okay that’s it for now thanks so much for sticking to the end of my video I hope you enjoyed it I hope you learned something we’ll make more videos soon [Music] Experience Freedom

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