- Novel
The Federalist Papers
- Published: 1788
- Atlas edition: V1.3 ·
- Language: English
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay
1757–1804
The Federalist Papers were written by three Founding Fathers of the United States under the shared pen name Publius.
Alexander Hamilton (1755 or 1757 to 1804) became the first US secretary of the treasury. James Madison (1751 to 1836), acclaimed as the Father of the Constitution, later served as the fourth president. John Jay (1745 to 1829), a diplomat, became the first chief justice of the United States.
ABOUT THE WORK
The Federalist Papers
The Federalist Papers are 85 essays written in 1787 and 1788 by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay to persuade the people of New York to ratify the new Constitution of the United States. They appeared under the shared pen name Publius and were collected in two volumes in 1788.
The Constitution had been drafted at the Federal Convention in Philadelphia in September 1787. Before it could take effect, it had to be ratified by state conventions, and opposition in New York was strong. The essays began appearing in New York newspapers in October 1787.
The first essay, by Hamilton, sets out the stakes. The American people, he writes, have the chance to decide whether societies can establish good government “from reflection and choice”, or whether they must always depend on accident and force.
The early essays argue that the states would be weaker and less safe apart. Jay, a diplomat, wrote several on the dangers of foreign influence and war between the states. Hamilton then describes the failings of the Articles of Confederation, the loose arrangement that had governed the states since independence.
Madison’s Federalist No. 10 is among the most famous. It deals with faction: groups of citizens united by an interest or passion opposed to the rights of others or the common good. Madison argues that a large republic, with many interests and representatives chosen from wide districts, is better able to control the effects of faction than a small one.
Later essays explain the structure of the proposed government. Madison describes the balance between the national government and the states, and the separation of powers. In Federalist No. 51 he writes that “if men were angels, no government would be necessary”, and argues that ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
Hamilton wrote most of the essays on the presidency and the courts. Federalist No. 70 defends a single, energetic executive. Federalist No. 78 describes the judiciary as the least dangerous branch and lays the ground for judicial review. In No. 84, Hamilton argues that a separate bill of rights is unnecessary.
The essays were written quickly, sometimes several a week, to keep pace with the newspapers and the debate. Their authorship was kept secret at the time, and for some essays it was later disputed between Hamilton and Madison.
Together the essays form a detailed commentary on the Constitution, written by people who helped design it, in the heat of the debate over whether to adopt it.
WHY IT MATTERS
Why The Federalist Papers matters
The Federalist Papers matter because they are still read as a guide to the thinking behind one of the oldest written national constitutions in use. Judges, scholars and politicians continue to cite them to explain what the framers intended.
Designing a government in The Federalist Papers
The essays treat government as a problem of design. How can power be divided so that no group becomes a tyranny? How can a large and varied country be governed by consent? Madison’s answer, a system of checks and balances resting on a realistic view of human nature, has influenced constitutional thinking far beyond the United States.
Who wrote The Federalist Papers?
Publius kept the secret for years. The first list of who wrote which essay came from Hamilton, in the days before his fatal duel with Aaron Burr, and Madison later disputed parts of it, putting the differences down to the hurry in which Hamilton’s list was made. Twelve essays were claimed by both men, and the argument outlived them by generations.
The answer came partly from mathematics. In 1944 the historian Douglass Adair assigned the essays by close reading, and in the 1960s the statisticians Frederick Mosteller and David Wallace tested the disputed essays by analysing their word choice. Their results supported Madison. The modern consensus credits Hamilton with 51 essays, Madison with 29 and Jay with 5.
The Federalist Papers in the courts
The essays have never stopped being working documents. The first Supreme Court decision to mention them, Calder v. Bull, came in 1798, and by 2000 the Court had quoted The Federalist Papers 291 times, on questions as different as the federal government’s power in foreign affairs and laws that punish acts after the fact. In 1819 Chief Justice John Marshall wrote that the authors’ opinions were “entitled to great respect in expounding the Constitution”, while keeping the right to judge whether they were correct. How much weight the essays should carry is still argued today.
Reading The Federalist Papers today
The essays were persuasive writing, not neutral analysis. They argued one side of a fierce public debate, and the Anti-Federalists who opposed ratification raised serious objections about concentrated power and the lack of a bill of rights. Reading the papers alongside those objections gives a fuller picture.
For Australian readers, the essays offer useful comparisons. Australia’s own federation in 1901 drew on American ideas about dividing powers between national and state governments, while keeping a parliamentary system.
The essays also show their limits. They were written by men of property in a republic that allowed slavery and denied women the vote, and their idea of who counted as “the people” was narrow. Reading them historically means noticing who was left out of the argument as well as who made it.
The papers are long, but individual essays stand on their own. Starting with Nos. 1, 10, 51 and 78 gives a clear sense of the argument and of why it still shapes debates about democracy, representation and the limits of power.
Edition Record
- First publication
- 1788
- Textual basis
- Source text: Project Gutenberg, https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1404
- Atlas edition
- V1.3 ·
- Language
- English
Prepared from the recorded source and the reviewed Atlas working edition.
Accessibility: EPUB and PDF are offered where approved; accessibility features have not been independently certified.
Source & Rights
- Text source
- Project Gutenberg
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The Federalist Papers by Hamilton, Alexander, Jay, John, Madison, James. Source text prepared from Project Gutenberg ebook 1404.