“Our peculiar security lies in the possession of a written Constitution. Let's not make it a carte blanche by construction." - Thomas Jefferson, 1803 The American Constitution created one of the newest and most incredible political structures the world has ever seen. Ironically, the American national government's greatest strength lay in its ability to limit its own power; the Constitution was formulated for the purpose of maximizing the freedoms of individuals while limiting national power. The Constitution achieved these goals by unifying its vastly diverse states into a single body, with a central government governing in cooperation with state and local authorities. Through a series of extremely precise and nuanced legal directives, the Constitution bluntly outlines exactly what powers and responsibilities the federal government would have and how it would interact with the powers of state government and state law. This relationship and understanding within American politics is known as federalism. And while federalism provided the growing federal government with real powers even over and against state powers, over time and in our modern era, federal power has been enormous. This occurred mainly through the interpretative evolution of some constitutional provisions. Constitutional interpretation depends on at least 3 factors: who is the president, who is in government and what are the prevailing customs among the people. The most exemplary changes in the meaning of Federalism in our day are the Commerce Clause or Supremacy Clause, which have been used to greatly expand the scope of federal power. The Commerce Clause provided Congress “the power to regulate commerce among foreign nations.. .... middle of paper ...... to unite the 13 colonies into one body. A united country, which has allowed social, political and commercial activities to take place, unhindered and unhindered by a negligent or biased legal system. But as time passed, the Constitution and the Supreme Court charged with maintaining and expounding it began to use the clauses and provisions of the document to combat partisan political issues and made the Constitution a political instrument for different ends. Those ends weren't always bad, they were often quite good. But the legitimate place for such functions was within the other two branches of government where elected representatives were expected to make such policy decisions. Federal power has been greatly expanded, but not without resistance from within and without. The meaning of federalism still remains up in the air in the ever-changing world of American politics.