Answer:
When the 13 United States of America declared independence from the United Kingdom in 1776, the founders were attempting to break free from the tyranny of Britain’s top-down centralized government.
But the first constitution the founders created, the Articles of Confederation, vested almost all power in individual state legislatures and practically nothing in the national government. The result—political chaos and crippling debt—almost sunk the fledgling nation before it left the harbor.
So the founders met again in Philadelphia in 1787 and drafted a new Constitution grounded in a
novel separation of state and national powers known as federalism. While the word itself doesn’t appear anywhere in the Constitution, federalism became the guiding principle to safeguard Americans against King George III-style tyranny while providing a check against rogue states.
