You can thank James Madison for former President Donald Trump's conviction this week in New York state court: it happened only because of Madison's concept of federalism. The fact that state and federal actions can proceed in parallel against Trump in the first place flows from Madison's design for our nation as a federated republic of sovereign states. But regardless of how you feel about the former president's New York trial, you should be grateful for Madison's vision of dividing power between state and federal governments, because it's the reason Trump's various legal matters can reach divergent results. Absent federalism, this would be an all-or-nothing scenario, and that would be worse for liberty—his and yours.