The fight between the Federalists and the Anti-federalists during our country’s founding was legendary. But even admist the vigorous debate (which centered around the idea of how to avoid the tyranny of a large and centralized government) both sides agreed that the government that most matters to citizen’s lives is that which is closer to them: local government.

And the firewall between local government and the (potentially) all-powerful centralized government was the State government, which was to retain it’s sovereignty above all (at least, so said the Anti-federalists who forced the issue on the 9th and 10th amendments)

A sure and predictable sign of how far we have moved away from our original constitutional republic is the intense interest in national elections rather than local elections (State, County and Municipal governments).

If we were still a constitutional republic with a limited fed, national elections would be much, much less interesting.