Federalism makes for a very weak country. Think how dysfunctional the congress is. Imagine trying to coordinate 50 individual State congresses. The gov't grew in power in reaction to problems that developed. There was no hostile take over. If we went backwards we'd quickly learn why power no longer is mainly at the State level.The US had this system, it's called Federalism.
However, Progs took over and centralized power. Now the President runs the show.