Which of the following features of the United States Constitution would most concern the author of Brutus 1?

• A. The two-year term for members of the House of Representatives
• B. The supremacy clause, which gives the federal government supremacy over states
• C. The Bill of Rights, which protects individual liberties and states' rights
• D. The reservation of any power not given to the federal government to the states

Answer: (B)

Brutus 1 centers on the danger of a strong national government overpowering state authority. The feature that best captures this fear is the Supremacy Clause, which says federal law is the supreme law of the land and overrides state laws. With this clause, Congress could enact broad national rules under its powers, and those rules would prevail over any conflicting state laws or constitutions, effectively limiting states’ ability to govern themselves and experiment with different policies. That centralizes power in a distant federal authorities and reduces state sovereignty, which is exactly what Brutus warned against.

The other options don’t hit that central worry as directly. A House term length is a procedural detail and not the main threat Brutus highlighted. A Bill of Rights concerns liberties, but Brutus argued the Constitution should not be ratified without protections like a Bill of Rights; the presence of a Bill of Rights wouldn’t be the feature he feared most in the moment of constitutional framing. Reserving powers to the states aligns with Brutus’s preference for state sovereignty, but the Supremacy Clause poses the concrete mechanism by which federal power would outweigh state authority.