Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay

Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay wrote the eighty-five essays of The Federalist under the name Publius for the New York newspapers between October 1787 and May 1788, to persuade the state to ratify the Constitution. Hamilton, Washington’s aide and the future Treasury secretary, wrote fifty-one; Madison, the Constitution’s chief architect and future president, twenty-nine, including the tenth, on faction, and the fifty-first, on checks and balances; Jay, ill, five. They were written at speed and are still the authoritative commentary on the document, cited by the Supreme Court and read at St. John’s in both junior and senior year.