a. [f. L. fœderāt- (see FEDERATE v.) + -IVE. Cf. F. fédératif, -ive.]
† 1. Of or pertaining to the formation of a covenant, league, or alliance. Obs. exc. Hist.
1690. Locke, Govt., II. § 146. This [power] therefore contains the Power of War and Peace, Leagues and Alliances, and all Transactions, with all Persons and Communities without the Commonwealth, and may be called Federative, if any one pleases.
1790. Burke, Fr. Rev., 228. Who suggest to them leagues of perpetual amity, at the very time when the power, to which our constitution has exclusively delegated the federative capacity of this kingdom, may find it expedient to make war upon them.
1874. Green, Short Hist., ix. § 9 (1876), 697. The Scotch proposals of a federative rather than a legislative union were set aside.
2. Of or pertaining to a federation; forming part of a federation; of the nature of a federation.
1781. Gibbon, Decl. & F., lxx. (1828), VIII. 395. A vast … idea of uniting Italy in a great fœderative republic.
1825. T. Jefferson, Autobiog., Wks. 1859, I. 78. Our first essay, in America, to establish a federative government had fallen … very short of its object.
1846. Grote, Greece, II. iv. II. 430. Argos, with the federative cities attached to her.
1851. Gallenga, Italy, 39. This federative work developes … difficulties.
3. Inclined to form federations.
1885. E. C. Stedman, Oliver Wendell Holmes, in Century Mag., XXIX. 506/1. The numberless corporations of the federative Saxon race in our aspiring municipalities.
1886. F. M. Crawford, Sarracinesca, in Blackw. Mag., CXXXIX., May, 582/1. They acquire from their earliest years the unmistakable outward manner of Romans, the broad Roman speech, and a sort of clannish and federative spirit.
Hence Federatively adv.
1823. Southey, Hist. Penins. War, I. 51. All the inferior powers … had contracted … federatively and individually, an alliance with the Emperor Napoleon.
1851. Sir F. Palgrave, Norm. & Eng., I. 89. The authorities and tribunals federatively combined in our political constitution.
1854. St. André, Land of Refuge, 55. Any established body not federatively constituted.
