Federalist No. 39: Partly National, Partly Federal

Opponents of the Constitution argued it betrayed the promise of a confederation of sovereign states and created one consolidated national government instead. Madison's answer in Federalist No. 39 is not to deny the charge but to reframe it. He argues the new government is a composite: neither a pure national government, where one population rules through a central authority, nor a pure federal (in the old sense, confederal) government, where sovereign states act as equals bound only loosely together. It is both, depending on which part of the design you look at.

Madison walks through five features and asks, for each, whether it looks national or federal: the foundation of the government (ratified state by state, so federal), the sources of its powers (House elected by the people directly, so national; Senate chosen by states, so federal), the operation of those powers (acting directly on individuals, so national), the extent of its powers (limited to enumerated objects, leaving the rest to states, so federal), and the amendment process (requiring supermajorities of both states and national bodies, so a mix of both). No single test settles the question, which is exactly his point.

This matters for the ratification fight and for how the Constitution relates to everything built on it. By showing the states still matter structurally, in the Senate, in ratification, in amendment, Madison answers the charge that the new government erases them, setting up the ongoing argument over how power actually gets divided between federal and state governments that runs through the rest of the course.