PRIZE: American Society for Legal History Article Prize to Grace MALLON (co-winner), "Negotiated Federalism: Intergovernmental Relations on the Maritime Frontier, 1789-1815"

 

(image source: Rothermere American Institute, Oxford)

On the article:

Grace Mallon’s “Negotiated Federalism” examines the federal government’s efforts to enforce its new authority after the Founding. Federal officials quickly realized that they required the participation and consent of state governments, as federal laws could not take effect without the legislation, investment, and manpower of state governments. The piece showcases how Atlantic port cities presented a crucial test case for negotiated federalism, where the federal government sought to exercise power in spaces where states had already entrenched their authority. As early federal officials set up customs and lighthouse services, rebuilt coastal fortifications, and enforced regulations, they had to negotiate with states to determine “which powers each level of government could exercise.” As a result, federal power depended on a state’s willingness to negotiate its authority. The crisply written article tackles big questions of federalism through granular details of practical problems and personality conflicts. Based in impressive primary source research in state and federal official records and correspondence, Mallon brings multiple areas of scholarship together to describe how power was worked out ‘in the course of ordinary government administration instead of in high theory. “Negotiated Federalism” takes something that we feel is well-understood (federalism at the founding) and through a creative path through the archive mines new and provocative ways of seeing the past that help us see the present more clearly.

Link to the article here: 10.1353/wmq.2024.a941486 

(source: RAI - Oxford University)