The Federalist Papers

Overview

Eighty-five essays, published in New York newspapers between October 1787 and August 1788, all signed Publius. Hamilton wrote around fifty-one, Madison twenty-nine, Jay five; the attribution of a dozen was disputed for a century and a half. They were written fast, sometimes at a day’s notice, to move votes in a state that was expected to reject the Constitution and nearly did.

This is advocacy. Publius is not describing a machine he admires from a distance, he is selling one, and he anticipates objections because the Anti-Federalists were making them in the next column. Reading the essays without any sense of that opposition is like reading one side of a correspondence.

The collection divides roughly into four parts: why the union must be preserved (1 to 14), why the Articles of Confederation failed (15 to 22), what powers the new government needs (23 to 36), and how its structure will prevent abuse of them (37 to 85).

The argument

The first section argues from danger. A divided America would fight itself and be played off by European powers; a confederation without coercive power over individuals is a league, not a government, and leagues fail. Numbers 15 to 22 are Hamilton’s autopsy on the Articles, and the charge is precise: requisitions on states are requests, and a government that can only request is not one.

No. 10 is Madison’s and the most important. The stock objection to large republics was Montesquieu’s: liberty survives only in small states with a common interest. Madison inverts it. Faction, meaning a group united by a passion or interest adverse to others or to the whole, is inseparable from liberty, because its causes are sown in human nature. You cannot remove the causes without destroying freedom, so you control its effects. A minority faction is handled by voting. A majority faction is the real danger, and it is checked by making the republic large: extend the sphere, take in a greater variety of interests, and it becomes unlikely that a majority will share a common motive, or find one another if they do. Representation refines and enlarges the public view by passing it through a chosen body of citizens.

The structural essays follow. No. 39 defends the Constitution as partly national and partly federal. No. 47 to 51 handle separation of powers, answering the charge that the branches are insufficiently separate. Madison’s answer is that parchment barriers are useless; what works is interest. Give each branch a will of its own and the means to defend itself, and let each officeholder’s personal ambition attach to the place he occupies. No. 51 also restates the extended-republic argument in a second key, as a guard for the rights of minorities.

Hamilton’s later essays defend the presidency and the courts. No. 70 argues for energy in the executive and for a single president rather than a council, because unity produces decision, activity and responsibility, and because you can only hold one man to account. No. 78 defends life tenure and lays out judicial review: the Constitution is superior law, a judge confronted with a statute contrary to it must prefer the Constitution, and this makes the judiciary the least dangerous branch because it commands neither sword nor purse.

How to read it

Nobody reads all eighty-five, and nobody is expected to. The core is 1, 9, 10, 15, 23, 39, 47, 48, 51, 62, 70, 78 and 84. If you read only two, read 10 and 51. Most courses set between six and a dozen.

Read at least one Anti-Federalist paper alongside, Brutus I or the Federal Farmer, both widely available. Publius spends most of his time answering arguments the essays never state fully, and the objections are strong: that a republic this size cannot be genuinely representative, that the judiciary will become unaccountable, that there is no bill of rights. Hamilton’s answer to the last, in No. 84, is that a bill of rights is unnecessary and dangerous, and it lost.

Attend to who is writing. Hamilton wants energy, centralisation and a strong executive. Madison wants balance and worries about majorities. They are not a single mind, and within a decade of ratification they were leading opposing parties.

Read the eighteenth-century sentences slowly. The prose is periodic and the argument often sits in a subordinate clause. If a paragraph does not resolve, find the main verb.

The common misreading is that these essays are neutral exposition of what the Constitution means. They are one side’s account of what it would mean, published before it was ratified, by two men who later disagreed about almost all of it.

Questions it raises

• Madison argues a large republic makes oppressive majorities unlikely. Does a national media and a two-party system defeat that mechanism by making one majority easy to assemble?
• If ambition is to counteract ambition, what happens when officeholders identify with a party rather than with their branch?
• Is faction really inseparable from liberty, or does Madison’s definition make it true by construction?
• Hamilton calls the judiciary the least dangerous branch because it has neither force nor will. Two centuries of judicial review later, was he wrong, or did he describe a court that no longer exists?
• No. 70 wants energy in the executive and a single accountable person. Where is the line between energy and prerogative?
• These are advertisements for a document that had not yet passed. How much authority should they carry over what it means now?