Richard Hofstadter in the early chapters of his book The American Political Tradition characterizes the Founding Fathers and the constitutional system they developed and addresses certain issues of federalism as they developed in the thinking of James Madison, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and others, and he shows elsewhere in his book how the concept of federalism was tested and preserved in American history and American political life. His analysis is less theoretical and more centered on the intentions of the framers of the Constitution and on what they wanted to achieve, protect, and promote.
One of the more interesting statements made by Hofstadter is that it is ironic that the Constitution "is based upon a political theory that at one crucial point stands in direct antithesis to the mainstream of American democratic faith" (Hofstadter 13). By this he means that there is a difference between democracy and liberty which the Founding Fathers recognized, and the liberty they most desired was property, which they saw as menaced by democracy. Hofstadter further says that the propertied class benefited most from the Constitution and that the document had in fact been developed by members of that class for their own protection:
They wanted freedom from fiscal uncertainty and irregularities in the currency, from trade wars among the states, from economic discrimination by more powerful foreign governments, from attacks on the creditor class or on property, from popular insurrection. They aimed to create a government that would act as an honest broker among a variety of propertied interests, giving them all protection from their common enemies and preventing any one of them from becoming too powerful (Hofstadter 14-15).
Hofstadter further finds that the propertied class benefited most from the Constitution, though for most of our history the power-grab of that class has been looked upon fondly rather than with resentment:<...