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The original text of the Federalist Papers (also known as The
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he Federalist Papers are a series of 85 articles advocating the
ratification of the United States Constitution. Seventy-seven of the essays were
published serially in The Independent Journal and The New York Packet between
October 1787 and August 1788. A compilation of these and eight others, called
The Federalist, was published in 1788 by J. and A. McLean.[1]
The writings of Mr. Hamilton, Mr. Jay and Mr. Madison, preserved in The
Federalist, written long after the acknowledgment of the independence of the
colonies, are full of complaints against the Articles of Confederation, on this
score. They are appeals for a change from this condition, and urge upon the
people to remedy these defects by adopting the proposed constitution and
creating the new citizenship. The Constitution of the United States was proposed
September 17, 1787, and the operations of the government began under it March 4,
1789. The Federalist papers were written in that interval, urging the adoption
of the Constitution by the States. In the fifteenth paper of The Federalist,9
Mr. Hamilton discusses "the insufficiency of the present confederation to the
preservation of the Union," as follows:
"The great and radical vice in the construction of the existing confederation
is the principle of legislation for states or governments, in their corporate or
collective capacities, and as contradistinguished from the individuals of which
they consist. . . . Except as to the rule of appointment, the United States has
an indefinite discretion to make requisitions for men and money; but they have
no authority to raise either, by regulations extending to the individual
citizens of America. The consequence of this is, that although in theory their
resolutions concerning those objects are laws, constitutionally binding on the
members of the Union, yet in practice they are mere recommendations which the
States observe or disregard at their option. . . . If we still adhere to the
design of a national government ... we must extend the authority chapter of the
Union to the persons of the citizens — the ^ only proper objects of government."
Again, in the twenty-third paper in the same illustrious authority declared:
"If we are in earnest about giving the Union energy and duration, we must
abandon the vain project of legislating upon the States in their collective
capacities; we must extend the laws of the federal government to the individual
citizens of America."
The above citations, which are but two of many, are sufficient to demonstrate
that under the peculiar organization of the United States, as it was originally
formed, the powers or authority of the general government did not extend to
individuals, save in a few isolated instances, and that consequently the only
real citizenship was that of States. Mr. Hamilton, in both his references to
citizens, spoke of them, not as citizens of the United States, but as citizens
of America, doubtless adopting that form of expression as more correct in
describing the citizens of the States generally.
Until the ratification of the Constitution of the . United States by nine
States, it was a nullity. New Hampshire was the ninth State to ratify. The
date of its action was June 21, 1788. Virginia and New York ratified the
Constitution a few days later, and before the date fixed for commencing the
operations of the government. Thus, for the first time, there was such a thing
as citizenship of the United States. That citizenship did not extend to North
Carolina until January 28,1790, or to Rhode Island until June for those States
delayed their ratifications L until after the operations of the government had
begun.
In the United States custom house at New York, one may see a list of the vessels
which entered the port of New York during the first year after 'the Constitution
of the United States went into effect, and in that list, entered as vessels
arriving from "foreign ports," are several ships from Rhode Island. Thus
we see-that, in eleven of the original States, State citizenship antedated
Federal citizenship over five years, and in two other States nearly seven years.
Speaking of the interim between the acknowledgment of the independence of the
colonies and the continued adoption of the Constitution, John Fiske, in his
History of the United States, says "Perhaps the only thing that kept the Union
from falling to pieces in 1786 was the Northwestern Territory, which George
Rogers Clark had conquered in 1779, and which skilful diplomacy had enabled us
to keep when the treaty was drawn in 1782. Virginia claimed this territory and
actually held it, but New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut also had claims
upon it. It was the idea of Maryland that such a vast region ought not to be
added to any one State, or divided between two or three of the States, but ought
to be the common property of the Union. Maryland had refused to ratify the
Articles of Confederation until the four States that claimed the Northwestern
Territory should yield their claims to the United States. This was done between
1780 and chapter 1786, and thus, for the first time, the United States
government was put in possession of valuable property which could be made to
yield an income and 'pay debts. This piece of property was about the first thing
in which all the American people were alike interested, after they had won their
independence. ''
In the light of the above historical facts, it is not Strange that the
discussions, prior to the great Civil War, on the question whether paramount
allegiance was due to their State, or to their Nation, by the citizens of the
States respectively, led to a difference of opinion on that question between
citizens.
The United States, as constituted under the Articles of Confederation, having
come into possession of the large unsettled Northwestern territory above
referred to, by the cession of Great Britain and the subsequent cession of their
rights by the several States which laid claim to it, the Continental Congress
undertook to pass, in 1787, the famous ordinances laying down certain
fundamental laws for the government of that territory, and in States which might
thereafter be formed out of that territory. The States of Ohio, Indiana,
Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin were subsequently erected and admitted into
the Union, and those five embrace what was then known as the Northwest
Territory.
Of the action of the Continental Congress in assuming to pass these ordinances,
Mr. Madison says in the thirty-seventh paper of The Federalist, that chapter
" in proceeding to form new States, to erect temporary governments, to appoint
officers for them, and to prescribe the conditions on which such States should
be admitted into the confederacy, the Congress acted "without the least color of
constitutional authority." The justification for this action stated by him
was: "The public interest, the necessity of the case, imposed upon them the
task of overleaping their constitutional limits." From this necessity of
violating the constitutional authority, he proceeded to argue: "But is not the
fact an alarming proof of the danger resulting from a government which does not
possess regular powers commensurate to its objects? A dissolution or usurpation
is the dreadful dilemma to which it is continually exposed." Whether the
Continental Congress did or did not possess power to enact the ordinances of
1787, the necessity that some one should take steps to that end was manifest to
every one, and the action of the Continental Congress was not only acquiesced in
by all the States, but the ordinance has come down to posterity as one of the
wisest charts of government ever framed. This territory had come into the
possession of the United States under the following circumstances:
When the treaty of peace was negotiated between territory. England and the
United States, the boundary lying between the English possessions and the
country whose independence was acknowledged, was fixed as running through the
centers of Lakes Ontario, Erie, Huron, and Superior, and thence westward through
the Lake of the Woods to the Mississippi, whereby the vast and rich domain lying
between the Great Lakes and the Ohio and Mississippi rivers became chapter a
part of the country acknowledged as independent. ' Settlers rapidly flocked to
that territory, and conditions there called for the organization of some sort of
political body for its government. Neither the Federal government, nor the State
of Virginia, had been able to discharge their debts to Revolutionary soldiers,
and Virginia, before the cession of her territory to the United States, had
issued many military land grants in this territory to her soldiers. When the
Continental army at Newburg threatened to march upon Philadelphia in the year
1783, because it had not been paid, its violence was allayed by the assurances
of General Washington that he would do all in his power to induce the government
to make provision for discharging its obligations to the soldiers, in part at
least, by military land grants in the Northwest Territory. Pursuant to that
pledge, Congress did make large land grants in the Northwest Territory, in that
portion now known as Ohio, to Revolutionary soldiers. After the armies were
disbanded, large colonies of people from the original States promptly settled in
the Ohio territory, under the leadership of Paul Carrington of Virginia, and
General Rufus Putnam of Connecticut, and thus it came about that at the time of
the passage of this famous ordinance, a considerable and representative body of
unorganized people were in occupancy of the Northwest Territory, demanding some
form of government and some right of representation.
The ordinance passed by the Continental Congress, pursuant to this urgency,
announced certain fundamental articles, which were to rest upon any and all
governments formed in the territory, and declared that the obligation to adopt
these fundamental principles should be regarded as a compact between the
original States and the people and States in said territory, and that, having
been adopted, they should forever remain unalterable, unless by common
consent.It will be noted, that Congress was so doubtful of its own powers, that
it made the compact obligatory, not between the United States and the people of
this territory, but between the original States and the people.
It is unnecessary to enumerate at length the fundamental principles laid down
for the government of the Northwest Territory. The Act provided for
the erection of the territory into a district; for a law of descents; and for a
form of civil government, tinder a governor and secretary appointed by Congress.
It gave the people of the territory the right to elect a general assembly by
popular election. In prescribing the qualifications of a candidate, and of
voters, it required that they should have been citizens of one of the United
States for a certain time. It gave the territorial legislature the right to
elect a delegate to Congress, who was to possess a seat with the right of
debate, but no vote. Without going into further details of this government, it
is sufficient to say that it was acceptable to the people and a remarkable
spectacle of government. For the United States, which had no citizens of its
own, undertook to create and erect a government of citizens, and to prescribe,
to the minutest detail, their obligations of citizenship. It is inconceivable
that the Continental Congress would have made the qualifications of candidates
and voters depend on their citizenship of one of the origin. States, if there
had been such a thing at the time as citizenship of the United States. The only
reference in the Ordinance of 1787 to "citizens of the United States" is in
Article IV. That is manifestly a reference to conditions in future, made with
the knowledge that the Constitution was then in process of formation and likely
to be adopted, whereby citizens of the United States would come into existence.
Thus we have the second class of American citizenship, to wit, citizenship of
the Northwest Territory, both of which classes of citizenship antedated
citizenship of the United States.
Citizenship of Me United States.
When the Constitution was ratified by nine of the Ratification of States
composing the old confederacy, and not until then, was there an actual and real
citizenship of the United States, however much the term may have been
theretofore loosely employed. The States ratified the Constitution in the
following order:
1. Delaware, December 7,1787;
2. Pennsylvania, December 12, 1787;
3. New Jersey, December 18, 1787;
4. Georgia, January 2,1788;
5. Connecticut, January 9,1788;
6. Massachusetts, February 6, 1788;
7. Maryland, April 28, 1788;
8. South Carolina, May 23, 1788;
9. New Hampshire, June 21,1788.
The Constitution provides, Article VII, that the ratification of the conventions
of nine States should be sufficient for the establishment of the Constitution
between the States so ratifying the same. The Constitution became an established
form of government June 21, 1788, in nine States, and the remaining States,
Virginia, New York, North Carolina, and Rhode Island, when they ratified it,
came into a government already established. This attitude of Virginia and New
York was a technical rather than an actual delay, for Virginia ratified the
Constitution June 26, 1788, and New York July 26, 1788, and the operations of
the government under the new Constitution did not begin until March 4,1789.
-- A Treatise on American Citizenship, By John Sergeant
Wise, United States. Supreme Court, Published by Edward Thompson company, 1906
he Federalist Papers are a series of 85 articles advocating the
ratification of the United States Constitution. Seventy-seven of the essays were
published serially in The Independent Journal and The New York Packet between
October 1787 and August 1788. A compilation of these and eight others, called
The Federalist, was published in 1788 by J. and A. McLean.[1]
Federalist Papers
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
An advertisement for The Federalist
The Federalist Papers are a series of
85 articles advocating the
ratification of the United States
Constitution. Seventy-seven of the essays were published serially in
The Independent Journal and The New York Packet between October
1787 and August 1788. A compilation of these and eight others, called
The Federalist, was published in 1788 by J. and A. McLean.[1]
The Federalist Papers serve as a primary source for interpretation of the
Constitution, as they outline the philosophy and motivation of the proposed
system of
government.[2]
The authors of the Federalist Papers wanted both to influence the vote in
favor of ratification and to shape future interpretations of the Constitution.
According to historian
Richard B. Morris, they 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."[3]
The articles were written by:
Alexander Hamilton (51 articles: nos. 1, 6–9, 11–13, 15–17, 21–36,
59–61, and 65–85)
James Madison (29 articles: nos. 10, 14, 18–20, 37–58, and 62–63), and
Federalist No. 10, which discusses the means of preventing faction and
advocates for a large republic (and warns of the dangers of a democracy), is
generally regarded as the most important of the 85 articles from a
philosophical perspective.[6]
Federalist No. 84 is also notable for its opposition to a
Bill of Rights.
Federalist No. 78 is another important one, laying down groundwork that
would eventually become
judicial review.
Federalist No. 51 may be the clearest exposition of what has come to be
called "Federalism."
The states sent the Constitution for ratification in late September 1787.
Immediately, the Constitution became the target of numerous
articles and public letters written by
Anti-Federalists and other opponents of the Constitution. For instance,
the important Anti-Federalist authors "Cato" and "Brutus" debuted in New York
papers on September 27 and October 18, respectively.[7]
Hamilton began the Federalist Papers project as a response to the opponents of
ratification, a response that would explain the new Constitution to the
residents of New York and persuade them to ratify it. He wrote in
Federalist No. 1 that the series would "endeavor to give a satisfactory
answer to all the objections which shall have made their appearance, that may
seem to have any claim to your attention."[8]
Hamilton recruited collaborators for the project. He enlisted Jay, who fell
ill and was unable to contribute much to the series. Madison, present in New
York as a delegate to the Congress, was recruited by Hamilton and Jay and
became Hamilton's major collaborator.
Gouverneur Morris and
William Duer were also apparently considered; Morris turned down the
invitation and Hamilton rejected three essays written by Duer.[9]
Duer later wrote in support of the three Federalist authors under the name
"Philo-Publius," or "Friend of Publius."
Hamilton also chose "Publius" as the pseudonym under which the series would
be written. While many other pieces representing both sides of the
constitutional debate were written under Roman names,
Albert Furtwangler contends that "'Publius' was a cut above 'Caesar'
or 'Brutus'
or even 'Cato.'
Publius Valerius was not a late defender of the republic but one of its
founders. His more famous name, Publicola, meant 'friend of the people.'"[4]
It was not the first time Hamilton had used this pseudonym: in 1778, he had
applied it to three letters attacking
Samuel Chase.
Publication
The Federalist Papers appeared in three New York newspapers: the
Independent Journal, the New-York Packet, and the Daily
Advertiser, beginning on October 27, 1787. Between them, Hamilton, Madison
and Jay kept up a rapid pace, with at times three or four new essays by
Publius appearing in the papers in a week. Garry Wills observes that the pace
of production "overwhelmed" any possible response: "Who, given ample time
could have answered such a battery of arguments? And no time was given."[10]
Hamilton also encouraged the reprinting of the essay in newspapers outside New
York state, and indeed they were published in several other states where the
ratification debate was taking place. However, they were only irregularly
published outside New York, and in other parts of the country they were often
overshadowed by local writers.[11]
The high demand for the essays led to their publication in a more permanent
form. On January 1, 1788, the New York publishing firm J. & A. McLean
announced that they would publish the first thirty-six essays as a bound
volume; that volume was released on March 2 and was titled The Federalist.
New essays continued to appear in the newspapers;
Federalist No. 77 was the last number to first appear in that form, on
April 2. A second bound volume containing the last forty-nine essays was
released on May 28. The remaining eight papers were later published in the
newspapers as well.[12]
A number of later publications are worth noting. A 1792 French edition
ended the collective anonymity of Publius, announcing that the work had been
written by "MM Hamilton, Maddisson E Gay," citizens of the State of New York.
In 1802 George Hopkins published an American edition that similarly named the
authors. Hopkins wished as well that "the name of the writer should be
prefixed to each number," but at this point Hamilton insisted that this was
not to be, and the division of the essays between the three authors remained a
secret.[13]
The first publication to divide the papers in such a way was an 1810
edition that used a list provided by Hamilton to associate the authors with
their numbers; this edition appeared as two volumes of the compiled "Works of
Hamilton." In 1818, Jacob Gideon published a new edition with a new listing of
authors, based on a list provided by Madison. The difference between
Hamilton's list and Madison's form the basis for a dispute over the authorship
of a dozen of the essays.[14]
Both Hopkins's and Gideon's editions incorporated significant edits to the
text of the papers themselves, generally with the approval of the authors. In
1863, Henry Dawson published an edition containing the original text of the
papers, arguing that they should be preserved as they were written in that
particular historical moment, not as edited by the authors years later.[15]
James Madison, Hamilton's major collaborator, later President of the
United States and "Father of the Constitution"
The authorship of seventy-three of the Federalist essays is fairly
certain. Twelve of these essays are disputed over by some scholars, though
some newer evidence suggests James Madison as the author. The first open
designation of which essay belonged to whom was provided by Hamilton, who in
the days before his ultimately fatal gun duel with
Aaron
Burr provided his lawyer with a list detailing the author of each number.
This list credited Hamilton with a full sixty-three of the essays (three of
those being jointly written with Madison), almost three quarters of the whole,
and was used as the basis for an 1810 printing that was the first to make
specific attribution for the essays.[16]
Madison did not immediately dispute Hamilton's list, but provided his own
list for the 1818 Gideon edition of The Federalist. Madison claimed
twenty-nine numbers for himself, and he suggested that the difference between
the two lists was "owing doubtless to the hurry in which [Hamilton's]
memorandum was made out." A known error in Hamilton's list—Hamilton
incorrectly ascribed
No. 54 to John Jay, when in fact Jay wrote
No. 64—has provided some evidence for Madison's suggestion.[17]
Statistical analysis has been undertaken on several occasions to try to
decide the authorship question based on word frequencies and writing styles.
Nearly all of the statistical studies show that all twelve disputed papers
were written by Madison.[18][19]
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