The Federalist Papers
The 85 essays that argued for the Constitution
Description
On October 27, 1787, approximately five weeks after the Constitutional Convention had completed its work in Philadelphia and submitted the proposed Constitution to the states for ratification, the New York newspaper the Independent Journal published an essay titled “The Federalist No. I” under the pseudonym “Publius.” The essay was the first of what would eventually be eighty-five essays published in New York newspapers across the subsequent ten months, all under the same pseudonym, all arguing for the ratification of the proposed Constitution. The actual authors of the essays were three of the more substantial political figures of the period: Alexander Hamilton, who had served as an aide to Washington during the war and who would subsequently become the first Secretary of the Treasury; James Madison, who had been substantially central to the drafting of the Constitution itself and who would subsequently become the fourth president; and John Jay, who had been a diplomat during the war and who would subsequently become the first Chief Justice of the United States. The three writers had agreed to collaborate on the project specifically to defend the Constitution against the substantial opposition that had emerged in New York and other states.
The essays were substantially political journalism rather than systematic philosophical argument. They were written rapidly, often under deadline pressure, with the authors producing two or three essays per week across the ten-month publication period. Hamilton wrote approximately fifty-one of the eighty-five essays, Madison approximately twenty-nine, Jay approximately five. The authorship of three of the essays remains substantially contested between Hamilton and Madison. The essays appeared in the Independent Journal, the New-York Packet, and the Daily Advertiser, with the substantial New York audience being the principal target of the persuasive case the authors were attempting to make. The collected essays were published in book form in 1788, before the New York ratification convention met, with the publication substantially intended to influence the convention’s deliberations.
The case has become one of the central reference points in modern American constitutional law and in the broader study of political thought. The essays substantially established the canonical American interpretation of the Constitution that the framers had drafted, with the specific arguments the essays developed becoming substantially central to subsequent constitutional jurisprudence. The Federalist Papers have been cited approximately 300 times in Supreme Court opinions across the subsequent two and a half centuries, with the citations being substantially more frequent than for any other historical source of American constitutional interpretation. The essays that Hamilton, Madison, and Jay wrote as political journalism in 1787-1788 have become substantially the foundational texts of American constitutional thought.
The question we’re asking: what did Publius actually argue, what political work did the essays do in 1787-1788, and what does the case reveal about how foundational political texts emerge from specific political circumstances ?
What we’ll see: the ratification contest and the three authors, the substantive arguments of the essays, the long subsequent influence on American constitutional thought, and what survives.
Table of contents
01The ratification contest and the three authors
The political conditions that produced the Federalist Papers were specific. The Constitutional Convention had completed its work on September 17, 1787, and had submitted the proposed Constitution to the states for ratification. The framework required that nine of the thirteen states ratify the document for it to enter into force. The substantial opposition that emerged across the states collectively called the Anti-Federalists argued that the proposed Constitution gave too much power to the federal government, that it lacked a bill of rights, that it would substantially reduce the autonomy of the states, and that it would substantially threaten the liberties the Revolution had been fought to secure.
The New York ratification contest was substantially the most consequential. The state’s substantial geographic position between New England and the southern states, its substantial economic importance, and its substantial political weight meant that ratification by New York was substantially essential to the success of the broader constitutional project. The political alignment within New York was substantially against ratification, with the Anti-Federalist position being substantially the majority position when the contest began. The Federalist response had to address this substantial political disadvantage.
02The substantive arguments
The substantive arguments operated across several connected dimensions. The most foundational was the argument for a substantial federal government, against the Anti-Federalist position that the Articles of Confederation framework was sufficient. The essays argued that the Articles had produced substantial economic, political, and military weakness failures in foreign trade, defense, public credit, and disputes among the states. The federal authority the Constitution would establish was necessary to address these failures.
Federalist 10, written by Madison and published in November 1787, became the most-cited essay of the collection. It addressed the argument that republican government had been possible only in small states, with the assumption that large republics would produce the tyranny of the majority or dissolution into faction. Madison’s innovation was the argument that a large republic could produce stable government precisely because the diversity of factions across a large territory would prevent any single faction from achieving the majority necessary to oppress the others. The framework inverted the conventional understanding of republican government.
03The long influence on American constitutional thought
The immediate political effect of the Federalist Papers was contested. The New York convention voted to ratify in July 1788 by a narrow margin, after substantial political maneuvering and deference to the fact that other states had already ratified. The actual influence on the convention’s deliberations is difficult to measure. The subsequent influence of the essays, however, has been substantially greater than any contribution they made to the original ratification.
The judicial use of the Federalist Papers began in the early nineteenth century. Chief Justice John Marshall’s decisions across his thirty-four-year tenure cited the Federalist Papers as authoritative sources of constitutional interpretation. The framework Marshall established — that the Federalist Papers represented the authoritative account of the framers’ intentions has been maintained by subsequent justices across the past two centuries.
04What survives, and what the case shows
The Federalist Papers continue to be substantially central to American constitutional thought. The annual reading of the essays in American law schools, the substantial citation in Supreme Court opinions, the substantial use in academic and political commentary all of these continue to operate at substantial scale. The essays that Hamilton, Madison, and Jay wrote as political journalism in 1787-1788 have become substantially the foundational interpretive framework for the constitutional system that has continued to operate across the subsequent two and a half centuries.
The deeper lesson the case offers is about how foundational political texts emerge from specific political circumstances. The Federalist Papers were not substantially conceived as a systematic political treatise. They were written rapidly, often under deadline pressure, in response to specific political opposition in a specific ratification contest. The substantial intellectual coherence the essays achieved was substantially the product of the political pressure under which the authors were operating and the substantial intellectual preparation they had brought to the work. The framework that emerged has substantially exceeded the political circumstances that produced it.
05Conclusion
Alexander Hamilton was killed in a duel with Aaron Burr in 1804. James Madison served two terms as president and lived until 1836. John Jay served as the first Chief Justice from 1789 to 1795 and died in 1829. The three authors, who had collaborated under a single pseudonym across ten months in 1787-1788, substantially shaped the political and judicial trajectory of the American republic across the subsequent decades.