THE FUTURE OF FEDERALISM

Nelson Rockefeller describes the three Godkin lectures on "The Future of Federalism" that he delivered at Harvard University last February as "the fitting together, into a theme, of the pieces of experience of a lifetime." The lectures, among the nation's most prestigious periodic lecture series, were set up in 1903 with funds contributed by friends of Edwin L. Godkin, editor of the New York Evening Post and the Nation, who died in 1902. Excerpts from Rockefeller's lectures, which constitute a revealing record of his philosophy of government and politics: On Federalism: "The critical political decisions in government are, and must be, primarily shaped and made by elected officials. It is with this particular perspective on our democratic processes that I underline my deep personal conviction that the future of freedom lies in the federal idea. I refer to the federal idea broadly as a concept of government by which a sovereign people--for their greater progress and protection--yield a portion of their sovereignty to a political system that has more than one center of sovereign power, energy and creativity.

No one of these centers or levels has the power to destroy another. The truth is that the federal idea--like the whole American experience--is a political adventure. It is no static thing, no dead definition, no dogmatic proclamation." On Big Government: "The striking fact in our domestic political experience since World War II has not been the growth of federal government--but the far more rapid expansion of state and local government to meet growing social needs. The role of the state within American federalism is far from 'obsolete' It is as dynamic and promising as is the federal idea itself." On the New Deal: "While the New Deal accomplished major social advances and did much to restore the confidence of the people, its leaders did not display great comprehension of the nature and workings of our economic system. They showed little or no awareness of the need to create a climate for growth to encourage an expanding American economy. This experience brought home the fact that it does not suffice to understand social needs and aspirations--without also fully understanding the dynamics of our economic system." On Today's Politics: "In the political environment of today, I would mark three pervasive attitudes or tendencies as plainly damaging to our processes of government. The first is the scorn of scepticism toward practical partisan politics. To call politics dirty is to call democracy dirty. The second is an addiction to political labels and slogans, along lines loosely called liberal and conservative. We all know that in any serious historical sense these terms have lost all meaning. The third is a timidity of leadership that rarely glimpses the dawn of any new concepts--but passively awaits the high-noon of crisis." On States' Rights: "The essential political truth is that--today more than ever--the preservation of states' rights depends upon the exercise of states' responsibilities. So great and urgent are the demands of national defense and foreign policy upon all resources of the national government that now, as never in our history, are state governments challenged to face and meet the pressing domestic concerns of our society. Our states are designed to be our great centers for political experiment. In a word, it is time for the states to lead." On National Purpose: "Political creation, not improvisation, is the order of the day. And anything less than a grand design--a major idea and a lofty sense of purpose--is too puny for the time in which we live. We are living in an age when (in the words of Walter Prescott Webb) we 'look down the long gunbarrel of history.' At such a time our sights and all our perceptions and faculties must be set for new ideas." On World Order: "The free world is grappling with precisely the political equation--the elements of order and the factors of freedom--whose balancing has been the supreme political achievement of our nation's history.

But we have failed to face up to the fundamental political problem--the creation of a free world structure of order and unity. The U.N. lacks the strength to master or control the forces that it confronts. I believe the historic answer to the problems the free world confronts can be found in the federal idea. I have long felt that the road toward the unity of free nations lay through regional confederations. But I have come to the conviction that events are driving us rapidly beyond even the limits of regional concepts--to the logic of applying the federal idea wherever possible. What our common danger--and our common aspirations--imperatively require, then, is a common commitment to some basic principles and purposes [leading] ultimately to the gradual devising of political forms of unity."

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