s caused there to be an extraordinary mixture of ethnic, racial, and religious groups spread across a continent-wide expanse that contributed historically to strong religious, racial and regional cleavages. Even its econony was spread throughout the American state. The largest sector of the economy were commercial agriculture, mercantile capitalism, mining, and heavy (capital goods) industry, but these, however, were also diversified into product specific areas. Collectively, the cultural, geographic, and socioeconomic factors had a profound effect on Americas political development because they reinforced the trend towards decentralization and localism that had already been established in the political and legal domains by the American constitution. The US constitutional/legal order created the most decentralized political system of an major state in the world. At the national level, under the separation of powers principle, the executive, legislative, and judicial branches operate as co-equal parts of the national government in the absence of any constitutionally prescribed hierarchy or scheme of coordination. The division of the states and the national government under the principles of federalism further contributes to the complexity and decentralization of the American government. The relationship between the sub units, the states, and the national government in the American federal system is the reverse of the found in other federations; the US constitution assigned only enumerated powers to the national government while reserving all residual powers for the states. Although a two part system developed early in American history, it was organized at the state and local levels and retained a local focus. This local focus was continually reinforced by the fact that every political office in the country was elected as the state or local level except that of the president and vice president. In general the US public policy has been char...
