Introduction to The Federalist
by Gordon Lloyd
Origin of The Federalist
The eighty-five essays appeared in one or more of the
following four New York newspapers: 1) The New York
Journal, edited by Thomas Greenleaf, 2) Independent
Journal, edited by John McLean, 3) New York Advertiser,
edited by Samuel and John Loudon, and 4) Daily Advertiser,
edited by Francis Childs. Initially, they were intended to be a
twenty essay response to the Antifederalist attacks on the
Constitution that were flooding the New York newspapers
right after the Constitution had been signed in Philadelphia on
September 17, 1787. The Cato letters started to appear on 27
September, George Mason's objections were in circulation
and the Brutus Essays were launched on 18 October. The
number of essays in The Federalist was extended in response
to the relentless, and effective, Antifederalist criticism of the
proposed Constitution.
McLean bundled the first 36 essays together—they appeared in the newspapers between
27 October 1787 and 8 January 1788—and published them as Volume 1 on March 22,
1788. Essays 37 through 77 of The Federalist appeared between 11 January and 2 April
1788. On 28 May, McLean took Federalist 37-77 as well as the yet to be published
Federalist 78-85 and issued them all as Volume 2 of The Federalist. Between 14 June
and 16 August, these eight remaining essays—Federalist 78-85—appeared in the
Independent Journal and New York Packet.
The Status of The Federalist
One of the persistent questions concerning the status of The Federalist is this: is it a
propaganda tract written to secure ratification of the Constitution and thus of no enduring
relevance or is it the authoritative expositor of the meaning of the Constitution having a
privileged position in constitutional interpretation? It is tempting to adopt the former
position because 1) the essays originated in the rough and tumble of the ratification
struggle. It is also tempting to 2) see The Federalist as incoherent; didn't Hamilton and
Madison disagree with each other within five years of co-authoring the essays? Surely the
seeds of their disagreement are sown in the very essays! 3) The essays sometimes
appeared at a rate of about three per week and, according to Madison, there were
occasions when the last part of an essay was being written as the first part was being
typed.
1) One should not confuse self-serving propaganda with
advocating a political position in a persuasive manner.
After all, rhetorical skills are a vital part of the democratic
electoral process and something a free people have to
handle. These are op-ed pieces of the highest quality
addressing the most pressing issues of the day. 2)
Moreover, because Hamilton and Madison parted ways
doesn't mean that they weren't in fundamental agreement
in 1787-1788 about the need for a more energetic form of
government. And just because they were written with a
certain haste, doesn't mean that they were unreflective and
not well written. Federalist 10, the most famous of all the
essays, is actually the final draft of an essay that originated
in Madison's Vices in 1787, matured at the Constitutional
Convention in June 1787, and was refined in a letter to
Jefferson in October 1787. All of Jay's essays focus on
foreign policy, the heart of the Madisonian essays are Federalist 37-51 on the great
difficulty of founding, and Hamilton tends to focus on the institutional features of
federalism and the separation of powers.
I suggest, furthermore, that the moment these essays were available in book form, they
acquired a status that went beyond the more narrowly conceived objective of trying to
influence the ratification of the Constitution. The Federalist now acquired a "timeless"
and higher purpose, a sort of icon status equal to the very Constitution that it was
defending and interpreting. And we can see this switch in tone in Federalist 37 when
Madison invites his readers to contemplate the great difficulty of founding. Federalist 38,
echoing Federalist 1, points to the uniqueness of the America Founding: never before had
a nation been founded by the reflection and choice of multiple founders who sat down
and deliberated over creating the best form of government consistent with the genius of
the American people. Thomas Jefferson referred to the Constitution as the work of
"demigods," and The Federalist "the best commentary on the principles of government,
which ever was written." There is a coherent teaching on the constitutional aspects of a
new republicanism and a new federalism in The Federalist that makes the essays
attractive to readers of every generation.
Authorship of The Federalist
A second question about The Federalist is how many essays did each person write?
James Madison—at the time a resident of New York since he was a Virginia delegate to
the Confederation Congress that met in New York—John Jay, and Alexander Hamilton—
both of New York—wrote these essays under the pseudonym, "Publius." So one answer
to the question is that it doesn't matter since everyone signed off under the same
pseudonym, "Publius." But given the icon status of The Federalist, there has been an
enduring curiosity about the authorship of the essays. Although it is virtually agreed that
Jay wrote only five essays, there have been several disputes over the decades concerning
the distribution of the essays between Hamilton and Madison. Suffice it to note, that
Madison's last contribution was Federalist 63, leaving Hamilton as the exclusive author
of the nineteen Executive and Judiciary essays. Madison left New York in order to
comply with the residence law in Virginia concerning eligibility for the Virginia ratifying
convention. There is also widespread agreement that Madison wrote the first thirteen
essays on the great difficulty of founding. There is still dispute over the authorship of
Federalist 50-58, but these have persuasively been resolved in favor of Madison.
Outline of The Federalist
A third question concerns how to "outline" the essays into its component parts. We get
some natural help from the authors themselves. Federalist 1 outlines the six topics to be
discussed in the essays without providing an exact table of contents. The authors didn't
know in October 1787 how many essays would be devoted to each topic. Nevertheless, if
one sticks with the "formal division of the subject" outlined in the first essay, it is
possible to work out the actual division of essays into the six topic areas or "points" after
the fact so to speak.
Martin Diamond was one of the earliest scholars to break
The Federalist into its component parts. He identified
Union as the subject matter of the first thirty-six
Federalist essays and Republicanism as the subject matter
of last forty-nine essays. There is certain neatness to this
breakdown, and accuracy to the Union essays. The fist
three topics outlined in Federalist 1 are 1) the utility of the
union, 2) the insufficiency of the present confederation
under the Articles of Confederation, and 3) the need for a
government at least as energetic as the one proposed. The
opening paragraph of Federalist 15 summarizes the
previous fourteen essays and says: "in pursuance of the
plan which I have laid down for the pursuance of the
subject, the point next in order to be examined is the
'insufficiency of the present confederation.'" So we can say
with confidence that Federalist 1-14 is devoted to the
utility of the union. Similarly, Federalist 23 opens with the following observation: " the
necessity of a Constitution, at least equally energetic as the one proposed… is the point at
the examination of the examination at which we are arrived." Thus Federalist 15-22
covered the second point dealing with union or federalism. Finally, Federalist 37 makes
it clear that coverage of the third point has come to an end and new beginning has
arrived. And since McLean bundled the first thirty-six essays into Volume 1, we have
confidence in declaring a conclusion to the coverage of the first three points all having to
do with union and federalism.
The difficulty with the Diamond project is that it becomes messy with respect to topics 4,
5, and 6 listed in Federalist 1: 4) the Constitution conforms to the true principles of
republicanism, 5) the analogy of the Constitution to state governments, and 6) the added
benefits from adopting the Constitution. Let's work our way backward. In Federalist 85,
we learn that "according to the formal division of the subject of these papers announced
in my first number, there would appear still to remain for discussion two points," namely,
the fifth and sixth points. That leaves, "republicanism," the fourth point, as the topic for
Federalist 37-84, or virtually the entire Part II of The Federalist.
I propose that we substitute the word Constitutionalism for Republicanism as the subject
matter for essays 37-51, reserving the appellation Republicanism for essays 52-84. This
substitution is similar to the "Merits of the Constitution" designation offered by Charles
Kesler in his new introduction to the Rossiter edition; the advantage of this Constitutional
approach is that it helps explain why issues other than Republicanism strictly speaking
are covered in Federalist 37-46. Kesler carries the Constitutional designation through to
the end; I suggest we return to Republicanism with Federalist 52.