How to Use federalist in a Sentence

federalist

noun
  • Plus John Adams was a Federalist so that’s something.
    — Jed Gottlieb, Boston Herald, 4 Apr. 2026
  • There are strict constructionists, but who knew Chief Justice John Roberts was a strict federalist?
    — Andrew C. McCarthy, National Review, 27 Oct. 2020
  • European federalists dismiss these problems as growing pains.
    — Foreign Affairs, 14 Dec. 2015
  • Erosion of comity between the states will have far-reaching and unpredictable consequences for our federalist system of government.
    — Lindsay Beyerstein, The New Republic, 2 Aug. 2022
  • Under our federalist system, each state is free to compete to encourage companies and employees to join its community.
    — Rick Pearson, chicagotribune.com, 22 Oct. 2020
  • Part of the problem in Germany is structural and linked to its federalist system that delegates governing powers to constituent regions.
    — Christiaan Hetzner, Fortune, 7 July 2021
  • His consultancy, North Star Research, is based in a stately federalist row house in Alexandria.
    — Alexander Nazaryan, Newsweek, 21 Feb. 2018
  • But a federalist system of public health becomes kind of clunky when these gaps in leadership or responsibility are exploited for political gain.
    — Leslie Nemo, Discover Magazine, 24 July 2020
  • The successes heralded by Ethiopia’s federalist constitution also revealed the limits of such a system.
    — John Mukum Mbaku, Washington Examiner, 18 Mar. 2021
  • Santa Anna, president of Mexico eleven separate times, first took power as a federalist, then switched sides and became a centralizer.
    — Rich Lowry, National Review, 20 July 2021
  • The answers to these questions are complicated by the United States’ federalist system, which empowers states and counties to take the lead on policies related to public health.
    — Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times, 13 Apr. 2021
  • Undeterred, European federalists, led by Macron, see the coronavirus as an opportunity to advance their project.
    — Peter Rough, National Review, 22 Apr. 2020
  • As national issues increasingly dominate local politics, the downsides of our federalist system may be outweighing the virtues.
    — The Politics Of Everything, The New Republic, 21 Sep. 2022
  • Built in 1853 and later expanded, the main five-bedroom Federalist-style home includes crown molding, wood floors, a sunroom, an eat-in country kitchen, and formal dining rooms.
    — The Week Us, TheWeek, 20 Jan. 2026
  • Recent years have provided many prominent examples of this conservative, federalist, state-centric approach to governance in practice.
    — Patrick Gleason, Forbes, 1 Jan. 2022
  • For decades, the province’s politics were dominated by federalists pushing to remain in Canada and separatists seeking independence.
    — Mathieu Dion, Bloomberg, 14 Jan. 2026
  • Federalists resisted demands to make ratification contingent on amendments suggested by state conventions.
    — Donald Nieman, The Conversation, 7 Oct. 2025
  • Every state, in our federalist system, has perfectly constitutional laws and regulations that indirectly affect industries outside its boundaries.
    — Matthew Scully, National Review, 11 July 2022
  • That Senate Republicans have introduced legislation allowing states to waive out of some—not all, but just some—of ObamaCare’s myriad mandates should give true federalists little comfort.
    — WSJ, 11 July 2017
  • But if there’s no financial reason for bankruptcy, America’s federalist system would typically prevent a federal court from intervening in a state legal dispute, Jacoby says.
    — Nathan Bomey, USA TODAY, 28 Jan. 2021
  • Having just defeated England, both sides appreciated the dangers of tyranny, and so federalists showed a willingness to appease anti-federalists’ concerns about encroachments on personal liberties.
    — Pioneer Press, Twin Cities, 8 Feb. 2025
  • Nevertheless, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights did not federalize education, which remains a state responsibility in our federalist system.
    — Andrew C. McCarthy, National Review, 25 Oct. 2021
  • This tension goes back to the very beginning, to the ratification of the Constitution, when Federalists and anti-Federalists debated whether there was enough glue to hold this new political entity together.
    — Gal Beckerman, The Atlantic, 8 June 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'federalist.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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