Concept
The Federalist Papers
Overview
The Federalist is a collection of 85 articles and essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay under the collective pseudonym Publius to promote the ratification of the Constitution of the United States. The papers themselves came to be known collectively as the Federalist Papers beginning in the nineteenth century.
The first seventy-seven of these essays were published serially in the Independent Journal, the New York Packet, and the Daily Advertiser between October 1787 and April 1788. A compilation of these 77 essays and eight others were published in two volumes as The Federalist: A Collection of Essays, Written in Favour of the New Constitution, as Agreed upon by the Federal Convention, September 17, 1787, by publishing firm J. & A. McLean in March and May 1788. The last eight papers (Nos. 78–85) were republished in the New York newspapers between June 14 and August 16, 1788.
The authors of The Federalist intended to influence the voters to ratify the Constitution. In Federalist No. 1, Hamilton explicitly sets that debate in broad political terms:
It has been frequently remarked, that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not, of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend, for their political constitutions, on accident and force.
In Federalist No. 10, Madison discusses the means of preventing rule by majority faction and advocates a large, commercial republic. This is complemented by Federalist No. 14, in which Madison takes the measure of the United States, declares it appropriate for an extended republic, and concludes with a memorable defense of the constitutional and political creativity of the Federal Convention.
In Federalist No. 84, Hamilton makes the case that there is no need to amend the Constitution by adding a Bill of Rights, insisting that the various provisions in the proposed Constitution protecting liberty amount to a "bill of rights". Federalist No. 78, also written by Hamilton, lays the groundwork for the doctrine of judicial review by federal courts of federal legislation or executive acts. Federalist No. 70 presents Hamilton's case for a one-man chief executive. In Federalist No. 39, Madison presents the clearest exposition of what has come to be called "Federalism". In Federalist No. 51, Madison distills arguments for checks and balances in an essay often cited for its justification of government as "the greatest of all reflections on human nature." According to historian Richard B. Morris, the essays that make up The Federalist Papers are an "incomparable exposition of the Constitution, a classic in political science unsurpassed in both breadth and depth by the product of any later American writer."
On June 21, 1788, the proposed Constitution was ratified by the minimum of nine states required under Article VII. In late July 1788, with eleven states having ratified the new Constitution, the process of organizing the new government began.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
Distinguishing between the leaders and people who compose it, the leaders consider the English constitution as a model of perfection, some, with a correction of its vices, others, with all its corruptions and abuses. This last was Alexander Hamilton’s opinion, which others, as well as myself, have often heard him declare, and that a correction of what are called its vices, would render the English an impracticable…
Thomas Jefferson, Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies, From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 4
States what The Federalist Papers is.
This Constitution, so ingeniously made invulnerable, was, however, like Achilles, vulnerable at one point: not in its heel, but in its head, or rather, in the two heads into which it ran out—the Legislative Assembly, on the one hand, and the President on the other. Run through the Constitution and it will be found that only those paragraphs wherein the relation of the President to the Legislative Assembly is…
Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte
States what The Federalist Papers is.
28, 1787 101 To Madame la Comtesse de Tesse, March 20, 1787 102 To the Marquis de La Fayette, April 11, 1787 106 To William Short, April 12, 1787 110 To John Jay, May 4, 1787 111 To Pierre Guide, May 6, 1787 123 To William Carmichael, June 14, 1787 125 To C. W. F. Dumas, June 14, 1787 128 To John Bannister, Junior, June 19, 1787 129 To James Madison, June 20, 1787 131 To John Jay, June 21, 1787 138 To Madame de…
Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson Library Edition - Vol. 6
Close in meaning to The Federalist Papers; the term itself is not named.
Related ideas
- Globe Pequot Publishing Group
- Yale University Press
- Julius Caesar
- James Madison
- Constitutional Convention (United States)
- Library of Congress
- American Revolution
- Conformity
- John Jay
- HarperCollins
- Republic
- Penguin Classics
- Separation of powers
- PBS
- Cato the Younger
- Constitution of the United States
- Tyranny of the majority
- Alexander Hamilton
- Articles of Confederation
- New York (state)
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of American philosophy.