The Meaning of Federalism in The Federalist: A Critical Examiniation of the Diamond Theses

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Abstract
Language poses a serious problem in political discourse when terms like federalism come to mean anything, everything, and nothing. An issue of some importance is how “confederation” was conceptualized in The Federalist, how that conceptualization was subject to critical analysis, especially in Federalist 15 and 16, and how the resolution of that critique contributed to the conceptualization of a federal system of governance. This essay was written in response to a re-reading of Martin Diamon's essay on “The Federalist's View of Federalism.” The position taken is that the theory of constitutional choice used to articulate the arguments in The Federalist provides the appropriate logic for construing the meaning of federalism despite the ambiguities of language contained in The Federalist.

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