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Federalist 39 Analysis

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In Federalist 39, James Madison, like Alexander Hamilton in the previous selections, attempts to alleviate the fears of proponents of states' rights that their interests would be submerged by the new Constitution. In this paper Madison separates the national from the federal characteristics of the Constitution, the term federal being used to describe those powers of the new government that essentially were shared by the states or reflected state interests. It is important to clarify for students the unusual use of the term federal by Madison to describe a system requiring an agreement among the states before certain actions could be taken, or where state interests are taken into account as in the representation of the states in the Senate.
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