After the convention’s draft constitution was dispatched to the states for ratification, the character of the Senate was an imperative selling point about the federal nature of the proposed national government. In Federalist 39, Madison went to great pains to delineate the ways in which the Constitution established a federal, republican form of government. “The first question that offers itself is whether the general form and aspect of the government be strictly republican. It is evident that no other form would be reconcilable with the genius of the people of America; with the fundamental
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