Federalist No. 44 is an essay by James Madison

James Madison

James Madison, Jr. was an American statesman and political theorist. He was the fourth President of the United States and is hailed as the “Father of the Constitution” for being the primary author of the United States Constitution and at first an opponent of, and then a key author of the United...

, the forty-fourth of the Federalist Papers

Federalist Papers

The Federalist Papers are a series of 85 articles or essays promoting the ratification of the United States Constitution. Seventy-seven of the essays were published serially in The Independent Journal and The New York Packet between October 1787 and August 1788...

. It was published on January 25, 1788 under the pseudonym

Pseudonym

A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...

 Publius, the name under which all the Federalist Papers were published. This essay addresses the Constitution's limitation of the power of individual states, something strongly decried by the Anti-Federalists, who sought a greater degree of sovereignty

Sovereignty

Sovereignty is the quality of having supreme, independent authority over a geographic area, such as a territory. It can be found in a power to rule and make law that rests on a political fact for which no purely legal explanation can be provided...

 for the states. It is titled, "Restrictions on the Authority of the Several States."

Overview

In this essay, Madison justifies many parts of the Constitution, specifically those sections which limit the powers of the states, give Congress full authority to execute its powers and establish the Constitution as the supreme law of the land.

His discussion begins with article 1, section 10 (which limits the powers of individual states), wherein he justifies the outlawing of state sponsored privateering as consistent with not allowing states to conduct their own foreign policy, which could lead to great mischief.

He then expounds upon why states should not be allowed to mint their own currencies or issue paper money, saying that multiple currencies would cause confusion and discrepancies, hurt citizens and fuel animosity between the states. He condemns the state issuance of paper money by citing the huge problems caused by this after the peace in 1783 (paper money issued by the states led to runaway inflation).

Madison vigorously defends the outlawing of bills of attainder, ex post facto law

Ex post facto law

An ex post facto law or retroactive law is a law that retroactively changes the legal consequences of actions committed or relationships that existed prior to the enactment of the law...

s and laws impairing the obligations of contracts. He insists that such laws would contradict basic principles of sound legislation, and of the social compact itself by allowing a capricious congress to remove basic individual rights and security.

Madison then argues at length for the Necessary and Proper Clause, noting that no part of the constitution had come under more attack. He states flatly that the clause is "invulnerable" and that without it the constitution would be a "dead letter." He says that the Constitution might have listed either enumerated those necessary and proper powers or attempted to list those that were expressly not necessary and proper, but argues that either exercise would have been futile in that no list could ever fully take into account all of the nation's present and future concerns.

He responds to critics who feared that the clause would allow the government to overstep its powers that the people would have the same redress to this as to any occasion on which the legislature abused its powers: the balance of the executive and legislative branches, and the potential to remove the offending legislators via the ballot box.

Madison similarly defends the supremacy clause

Supremacy Clause

Article VI, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution, known as the Supremacy Clause, establishes the U.S. Constitution, U.S. Treaties, and Federal Statutes as "the supreme law of the land." The text decrees these to be the highest form of law in the U.S...

as vital to the functioning of the nation. He noted that state legislatures were invested with all powers not specifically defined in the constitution, but also said that having the federal government subservient to various state constitutions would be an inversion of the principles of government, comparing
it to having the brain subservient to limbs of the body.

Finally he speaks to the importance of having both state and federal legislators and judicial officers swear an oath to the constitution, noting that the federal government is dependent upon the states to carry out policy.