ABSTRACT
The United States has an extremely robust network of subnational constitutions. It is one of the few federations in the world in which subnational entities are understood to be fully competent polities with virtually complete constituent powers of self-organization and self-authorization. Foreign observers routinely characterize the United States as a classic example of a coming-together federation. In the North, public opinion was divided. Some accepted the southern account of the nature of American federalism, but others, motivated by anti-slavery sentiment, began to develop a competing account of the union in which the nation was conceived as a single, unified polity; its interests were superior to the necessarily parochial interests of any state; national power was consequently great; and the national government had significant authority to take steps to eradicate the evil of slavery.
