[a. F. fédération, ad. L. fœderātiōn-em, n. of action f. fœderāre: see FEDERATE v. and -ATION.]
1. The action of federating or uniting in a league or covenant. Now chiefly spec. the formation of a political unity out of a number of separate states, provinces, or colonies, so that each retains the management of its internal affairs; a similar process applied to a number of separate societies, etc.
1721–1800. Bailey, Federation, a Covenanting.
1867. Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1876), I. iii. 98. There must have been, if not centralization, at any rate something like federation.
1888. Sir C. G. Duffy, An Australian Example, in The Contemporary Review, LIII. Jan., 27. If the principles of self-government were pushed to their legitimate conclusion, a young barrister born in an Irish parsonage showed the way; if federation of the colonies be partly accomplished, the path was opened up by another Irishman.
b. Federation of the (British) Empire, Imperial Federation: a proposed readjustment of the relations between the various parts of the empire, by which the colonies would share with the mother country the control and the cost of all measures taken for the safety and well-being of the empire as a whole.
1885. Mrq. Lorne (title), Imperial Federation.
1886. Pall Mall G., 16 June, 11/1. A paper was read by Sir George F. Bowen on ‘The Federation of the British Empire.’… He adopted Mr. Forster’s definition of … Imperial Federation—viz., such a union of the mother country with her colonies as would keep the British Empire one State in relation to other States, through the agency of an organisation for common defence, and a joint foreign policy.
2. A society or league formed for joint action or mutual support; now chiefly, a body formed by a number of separate states, societies, etc., each retaining control of its own internal affairs.
Now often in names of political societies and trade-unions, as, the Miners’ Federation, the National Liberal Federation, the Social Democratic Federation, the Shipping Federation.
1791. Burke, App. Whigs, Wks. VI. 126. Is he obliged … to keep any terms with those clubs and federations?
1855. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., xix. 325. The Batavian federation.
1859. Helps, Friends in C., Ser. II. I. Addr. to Rdr. 5. There would be a federation amongst the sensible … people.
1861. M. Pattison, Ess. (1889), I. 40. All this was in the century preceding the formation of the Hanseatic federation.
1865. H. Kingsley, Hillyars & Burtons, lxii. When the Australian Federation set up on their own account, and, sickened with prosperity, feel the necessity of a little fighting, they need not despair of finding a casus belli among themselves.
1892. Daily News, 14 March, 5/8. In Durham the Federation means the union of the Durham collieries.
3. attrib.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., II. IV. ix. Our sublime Federation Field is wetted, in this manner, with French blood.
1893. Westm. Gaz., 8 April, 5/2. At an evening meeting Shipping Federation cards and books … were burnt.
Hence Federationist, an advocate of federation.
1865. Pall Mall G., 27 April, 5. The object of the Federationists.
1887. Athenæum, 28 May, 703/1. The federationist leaves this problem ‘outside the discussion.’
