ABSTRACT
The proponents of dual federalism insist that the Constitution is a compact among the states, which have, on certain enumerated issues, ceded a portion of their sovereignty to the national government. The many deficiencies of dual federalism became so painfully apparent that the Court no longer employed it to invalidate a congressional enactment after Trusler v. Crooks in 1926. Modern usage has co-opted the simple word federal to signify what the Framers considered to be a composition of both federal and national elements. It is essential to understand that the Framers recognized only two fundamental modes, or elements, of political organization— the federal and the national— which they thought they had combined into a compound system. The proponents of dual federalism insist that the Constitution is a compact among the states, which have, on certain enumerated issues, ceded a portion of their sovereignty to the national government.
