Anarchism and Federalism

Proudhon espouses Federalism, which seems to conflict with his Anarchism, because the former connotes a centralized government, while the latter connotes individual liberty.  However, Federalism unifies not individual citizens, but smaller political units, of which a citizen is more immediately a member.  So, he conceives a Federation as functioning as protection of the citizen from more localized tyranny.  A more recent example that seems to exemplify his analysis is the protection, by the U. S. Federal Government, of voting rights in a state like Mississippi.  Likewise, some of the apparent Anti-Federalism of sone American Libertarians is actually a defense of State authority, and, hence, potentially antagonistic to individual citizens that are subject to that authority.