After Mosteller and Wallace: Authorship of the
Federalist Papers
John Olsson
Introduction
In this paper a novel approach to authorship attribution is suggested, specifically
relating to conceptual metaphor as exemplified in Lakoff (1994).
Background
In the history of modern authorship attribution there has probably been no more
widely analysed and measured set of texts, with the probable exception of
Shakespeare, than the Federalist Papers, a set of 85 documents prepared for the
citizens of New York in the late 1780’s to persuade them to adopt a federal system of
government rather than allowing the then 13 states to fracture into confederacies or
separate political entities. Writing these texts was the brainchild of Alexander
Hamilton, a native of the West Indies who had gone to America as a young student of
King’s College (now Columbia University). It was to be a mammoth undertaking and
initially three men were to be involved in their creation: Alexander Hamilton himself,
James Madison (later the 4th President of the United States) and John Jay, a prominent
lawyer. All of them were central figures in the political and legal establishment of
their day. Traditionally, Hamilton is seen as the author of 51 of the papers, Jay
contributed only 5 of them (due to ill health) and Madison 14. Three of the papers are
jointly attributed to Hamilton and Madison, and twelve are of disputed authorship —
the work of either Hamilton or Madison. Most of the authorship attribution tests
which have been carried out on these twelve papers have attributed them to James
Madison. The most famous analysis of their authorship was conducted by Mosteller
and Wallace (1964).
My objection to many of the authorship tests carried out on the Federalist Papers,
including that of Mosteller and Wallace, is threefold: firstly, the means of analysis is
not linguistic in most cases, but statistical. Doubtless, Mosteller and Wallace’s
Bayesian analysis is brilliantly simple, but it cannot be described as having any
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foundation in linguistic theory. It merely computes frequencies of a set of function
words from each of the candidate authors without saying why those particular
function words should have any linguistic bearing on the delicate quality of
authorship.
My second objection to Mosteller and Wallace (hereafter MW) is the source of their
texts. There are several editions of the Federalist Papers and, as MW themselves
admitted, they made many editorial corrections to the papers before testing them.
Rudman notes that the ‘little book of corrections’ MW refer to in their paper, lists
over a thousand such corrections but, sadly, this ‘book of corrections’ has never been
made public and so we do not know what those alterations consisted of.
My third objection to MW is that, like many computational analyses, little or no
attention is paid to the actual language of the texts. For all I know, tests like MW’s
could be applied to a description of surgical procedures or an opera programme with
equal results: I am cautious of rendering decisions on authorship by quantification
alone, unless the method of quantification has some foundation in linguistic theory.
However, in the case of a large corpus of long texts I am prepared to be persuaded
that some statistical tests may be effective, providing that proven statistical methods
are used. I say this because the fact that many other studies have, apparently
independently, confirmed Madison as the author of the disputed papers, must
engender some respect for the methods used, even if, as linguists, we may feel that the
case has not been made according to linguistic principles. This is not to suggest that
we should rely absolutely on such methods, but that it might be possible to include
them in our authorship attribution arsenal, with the proviso that we should not neglect
the development of linguistic methods in the task of authorship attribution.
In this latter regard, I would like to propose a broadly cognitive linguistic approach,
based largely on Lakoff’s notion of conceptual metaphor. In order to set forth how I
have arrived at this position, I will first describe some aspects of intertextuality and
how these may impinge on the question of authorship.
Authorship and intertextuality
Questions of authorship and intertextuality cannot be considered apart from each
other. Authors do not write in isolation but as a result of accumulated experience,
experience which is both personal in the “real world” and personal in the world of
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text. Experience is not the abstraction of concepts, as was traditionally supposed in
cognitive linguistics. Lakoff, for example, believes that “abstract concepts are
understood in terms of concrete physical and interpersonal experience” (Lakoff 1994:
42). These experiences collectively create a frame which the author uses as a basis for
writing a text. The author engages with this text frame and sifts and processes the
words, messages, texts, symbols and any other semiotic content from within that
frame. The frame will have formed as part of the writer’s life (non-textual) experience
and textual experience, and these are, in part at least, subliminal. Some elements of
the frame will only appear at the moment the writer begins to write, yet they will have
been ‘there’ all the time.
Lakoff suggests that conceptual metaphor, which he defines as the mapping of one
mental domain in terms of another (Lakoff 1994: 42), is the unifying
cognitive-linguistic experience which underlies many of our everyday experiences.
He explicitly rejects the notion that metaphor belongs to literary language exclusively,
and gives an example of how, in everyday language, we constantly use metaphor to
describe common situations. The example he gives relates to love relationships which
are conceptualised as journeys through which couples who are ‘in love’ must go. He
gives the following expressions as indications of an underlying metaphoric
conceptualisation of love relationships as journeys: “look how far we’ve come”, “we
can’t turn back now”, “our relationship has hit a dead-end street”, “it’s been a long,
bumpy road”, “we may have to go our separate ways”, etc (Lakoff 1994: 45). For
Lakoff there is a principle at work in such examples as these which has nothing to do
with grammar or lexis, rather it is “part of the conceptual system underlying English”
which causes the occurrence of this kind of metaphor-rich domain:
The lovers are travelers on a journey together, with their common life goals seen as
destinations to be reached. The relationship is their vehicle, and it allows them to pursue
those common goals together. The relationship is seen as fulfilling its purpose as long as it
allows them to make progress toward their common goals. The journey is not easy. There are
impediments, and there are places (crossroads) where a decision has to be made about which
direction to go in and whether to keep traveling together.
Lakoff 1994: 46
As Lakoff explains, the metaphor “involves understanding one domain of experience,
love, in terms of a very different domain of experience, journeys”, but more
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technically there is a kind of mathematical mapping from the source to the target
(journeys to love, in this case) (Lakoff 1994: 46). The relationship encounters
difficulties, just as one encounters problems on a journey. The lovers show resolve, as
a traveller determined to reach a destination might, and continue with their journey
(relationship), or they lack the strength and resolve to continue and so ‘turn back’, just
as travellers might. The ‘love as a journey’ metaphor is just one type of conceptual
framework underlying human activity. What is striking about conceptual metaphor in
language is that it sometimes happens that a particular kind of human activity will, for
no apparent surface reason, rely on a common conceptual metaphor framework even
where the participants in that activity may be separated from each other culturally, or
in relation to geographic distance or time. Thus, for example, people will use similar
metaphors as each other to describe or engage in a particular human activity, even
where they have had no contact with each other, and where they may be engaging in
that activity for the first time. The texts produced in such cases appear to share a
common source, that is to say exhibit high degrees of intertextuality: yet the
participants may have little or no familiarity with the domain of experience they are
writing about. So, although the source of the experience may not be textual, the result
is ‘intertextual’.
One striking example of this kind of intertextuality — if that is what it is — is that
found in ransom notes, where many of the same words and phrases are used in
independently produced ransom notes sent to victims in hostage situations, written by
people who (a) have probably never seen a ransom note before, (b) have probably
never written a ransom note before, and, in fact, (c) are, as far as is known, engaged in
their first kidnap activity.
Thus, ransom note writers often use the same strategies in their texts as each other: for
instance it is not uncommon to find use of a distancing strategy where the writer
employs the passive (usually agentless) or the fictive 'we' when only one person is
involved in the kidnap; ransom demand writers frequently couch their warnings in
similar terms as each other; they often talk of 'chance' or 'luck' and sometimes display
a kind of black humour, and they not infrequently prescribe complex and pointless
routines for recovery of ransom money.
From all of these similarities, observed across many different ransom demands from
different countries and cultures over vastly different time periods (from about 1890 to
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the present) I deduced that underlying the hostage scenario is effectively a game
metaphor with the hostage taker as the controller of the game. It is a game devised to
ensure that the victim of the crime and the recipient of the demand cannot win.
Hostage takers frequently re-write the rules of the game in subsequent ransom
demands, including changing venues, times, the identity of drop personnel and
ransom amounts. They taunt their addressees with macabre gibes, display arrogance
and cruelty to their addressees, and generally appear to enjoy the situation of exerting
total control over the lives of others.
When viewing such ransom notes it is very evident that ‘pure’ intertextual influences
and life experiences cannot be considered as separate from each other, since the
similarities seem to stem from a cognitive framework which, by its nature, cannot
include more than the slightest amount of common text. Therefore, it seems that the
similarities in ransom notes stem from a life experience, rather than actual textual
influences. Evidently, similar life activities and experiences cause similar cognitive
frames to be built and these frames tend to produce, as in the case of ransom demands,
similar types of language and metaphor. It is not just that the language of ransom
demands is similar in type across independently produced texts but, crucially, that
underlying the ransom demand in so many cases is a common conceptual metaphor,
which I have termed ‘the game metaphor’.
Metaphor and words
If it is right to argue that kidnappers routinely use the game metaphor to map the
hostage-taking experience, then we need to ask why this particular metaphor should
be common to the kidnapping scenario, almost to the exclusion of other conceptual
metaphors. Perhaps underlying the kidnap exchange is the notion of a business
transaction: one party has a ‘product’ for which the other is prepared to pay a sum of
money. We are all, probably, familiar with the notion of business as a game. It is a
concept which has played a vital rôle in many books and films, probably most notably
‘Wall Street’ where it is also seen as ‘war’, but one which follows a set of rules made
by a powerful, anonymous controller who manipulates players. Economics and
business magazines regularly map the notion of ‘game’ onto ‘business’ which is itself
full of imagery about ‘winning’ and ‘losing’, ‘players’, who are ‘winners’ and
‘losers’, ‘success’ and ‘failure’, etc.. There is thus a powerful connection between the
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notions of business and game and it may be this metaphor that the kidnapper or other
extortionist draws on in constructing ransom demands.
It is just worth mentioning, also, that although so many ransom demands appear
underpinned by the game metaphor, as I have described above, and although many of
the lexical tokens are identical or similar across many different texts, there are — at
the lexical level — substantial differences between different ransom note writers.
However, this should not be taken to imply that the level of intertextuality is low, or
that the commonality of experience is reduced just because the lexicons of different
ransom notes may share little in common. As Lakoff points out:
What constitutes the [conceptual] …metaphor is not any particular word or expression. It is
the ontological mapping across conceptual domains…. The metaphor is not just a matter of
language, but of thought and reason. The language is secondary. The mapping is primary, in
that it sanctions the use of source domain language and inference patterns for target domain
concepts.
Lakoff 1994: 48
Metaphor and authorship attribution
Having argued that common experience can be a strong factor in the type of
conceptual metaphor used in a particular genre or text type, as an illustration of
conceptual metaphor, I would now like to consider the rôle of metaphor in text
creation.
Some models of authorship attribution presuppose that for an individual the act of
authoring a text throws up a set of fixed behaviours or “habits” such that there will
inevitably be a consistency within one author’s oeuvre regardless of the many
different kinds of cognitive activity involved in the creation of different text types.
This is because these models tacitly assume that authorship identification can be
carried out purely on the basis of surface forms. This is, I suggest, a fundamental
misunderstanding of the nature of text production, because it ignores how language is
put together in a particular authorial context and, specifically, the rôle of language
conceptualisation.
The act of authoring a text is a highly complex activity which goes much deeper than
grammar or lexis, and concerns primarily the author’s ‘conceptual systems’ (to use
Lakoff’s term). If we are to find ways of successfully attributing authorship it cannot
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be the case that there is one single way of doing so which will be able to take into
account not only the multiplicity of cognitive and social activities which authorship
involves, but also the vastly complex array of human experiences, both common and
individual. It is clear that different types of authorship inquiry, different text types,
and different types of author will demand a variety of approaches. It is also clear that
authorship attribution is an activity fraught with danger and difficulty if people’s
freedom, and indeed lives, are to depend on it. For this reason many advocate an
eclectic approach to authorship, which is to say the reliance not on one, but on several
different methods. Given that, in the view outlined above, authorship is primarily a
socio-cognitive activity which relies on previous experience, both linguistic and
non-linguistic, I will now set out an application of the idea of conceptual metaphor to
authorship attribution. I will first revert to the topic of the Federalist Papers to give the
reader a brief account of their context, which will be helpful in understanding the
method of attribution to be described below.
The Federalist Papers
The Federalist Papers were written as a means of political persuasion. In part they
make heavy reading owing to the somewhat dense and convoluted argumentation, and
so were probably intended for the educated classes. They contain logic, philosophy,
flattery, propaganda and, arguably, an element of scare-mongering. Essentially, they
are propagandist and we may, at least on occasion, doubt the purity of their writers’
motives regarding their views of the interests of the Union.
In essence, America is portrayed in the Papers as a country in mortal danger because
the present Constitution is weak and liable to encourage factionism and greed.
Moreover, the present Constitution does not provide any protection from the avarice
of foreign powers (chiefly Great Britain, France and Spain). The 13 States (as they
then were) are shown to be political rivals, vulnerable to individual attack from
foreign powers. If they do not unite strongly under a new banner, the Union is in
mortal danger. Wise and good ‘men’ will understand these things and will unite to
ensure that the Union is preserved and that a new Constitution will come into being,
thus ensuring the future commercial and military might of America. The conclusion is
inescapable: if you are an honourable ‘man’ you will support the new Constitution.
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All three writers, Jay, Hamilton and Madison espouse these views, but they do so in
slightly different ways, using somewhat distinct kinds of metaphor: essentially, as I
have argued above, they map their own life experiences, linguistic and otherwise,
onto the language they use. Leaving the writings of Jay aside, I propose to focus, in
the next sections on the writing of Hamilton and Madison.
I will suggest that Hamilton and Madison use metaphor in strikingly different ways,
and that, effectively, we can differentiate their styles on the basis of discovering the
nature of the metaphor they use.
Hamilton
For Hamilton a government is a being which can ‘operate’, can become ill, through an
‘incurable disorder’, or even show signs of mental illness, i.e. become ‘imbecilic’. If
the government is bad, what happens to the State can be even worse: it can be
diseased with ‘disorders’ of a ‘disfiguring’ nature, some of which are ‘incurable’ to
the extent of suffering ‘dismemberment’.
Thus, for Hamilton, the political machinery is conceptualised as a being, a creature
which, through ‘disorder’ can cause the State to suffer terminal consequences. In this
way Hamilton makes the political situation very real by likening it to something
everybody is familiar with: a sick patient. But he goes further than this: how will
people react to tyrrany and bad government? For Hamilton the answer is obvious, and
just as visceral as the description of the disfigured, terminally ill patient: people will
react with ‘horror’ and ‘disgust’. By contrast, a good government is a source of
benefits: it provides ‘order’ and is a protector of freedom, enshrined in the famous
phrase, ‘free government’.
In other papers Hamilton is equally descriptive. Having graphically described the
‘disfiguring’ illnesses of weak or tyrannical government he also talks about the human
qualities of a country in terms of its ‘fate’ if in the wrong hands. It can suffer not only
‘dismemberment’ but ‘dissolution’ also and is vulnerable if ‘exposed’ to needless
‘evils’ and ‘dangers’, i.e. ‘factionism’.
People clearly need protection from bad politicians, according to Hamilton, because
politicians (especially foreign ones) practise ‘arts’, and are full of ‘dissension’ which
he compares with ‘convulsions’ — a medical term of the eighteenth century.
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‘Dangers’ ‘flow’ from such instability, which is seen as a raging river, which he
describes as a ‘torrent of angry and malignant passions’. However, not all emotions
are bad — for instance the ‘enthusiasm of liberty’, is good, but readers are cautioned
that it can become ‘infected’ by ‘distrust’ because ‘love’ and ‘jealousy’ go hand in
hand.
Rulers need to be controlled because for them power is a greedy culinary experience
where they seek ‘gratification’ and ‘sacrifice’ from others. Even at the verbal level
politics is like a dish which can have ‘bitterness’ in its ‘invectives’.
Having portrayed all the bad things in political life, Hamilton proposes a solution: the
advent of good ‘men’ who ‘add...philanthropy to...patriotism’, essentially claiming
that patriotism is the same thing as being philanthropic because all good ‘men’ will
want to practise it. These patriots unite around the idea of a new Constitution which,
according to Hamilton, will act like a ‘barrier’ against the raging torrent of human
passions. Finding the right constitution for Hamilton is like a journey: he talks about
‘formidable obstacles which the...Constitution will have to encounter’.
Thus, to conclude, for Hamilton America is in a perilous state of health because it has
become infected by the malignant passions of rival states who do not have the benefit
of a single constitution to prevent political dismemberment. The remedy for rescuing
the country from this disfiguring disease is for philanthropists to embark on a journey
of discussion to find the right constitution, despite the many dangers and obstacles,
recognising that even good people will be actuated by both love and jealousy, that
greedy politicians will want to gorge themselves on the sacrifices of others, that this
journey involves, among other things, navigating a ‘torrent’, and much ‘bitterness’
between some of the travellers. Hamilton’s perception is a very physical one: the
passions are involved, the experience of politics is perceived as a sensual one, there is
malignancy, fever, disfigurement. We have a strong sense of someone who, despite
being in high office, nevertheless was in touch with real life, for example his
awareness that bad government induces ‘horror’ and ‘disgust’ among the electorate,
strong words in the genteel eighteenth century.
Madison
Madison makes many similar points to Hamilton. A government is also a being,
because it is able to ‘perish’: a sick government requires a ‘cure’. Bad politicians see
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political activity as a dish, because they have their ‘favorite and fruitful topics’. On
the other hand good government is like a recipe with its departments ‘connected and
blended’. Political power is also metaphorised: it is sometimes a voracious being with
its ‘all grasping prerogative’, or a storm with ‘an impetuous vortex’ or even a
malevolent spirit, as in ‘the encroaching spirit of power’. Politicians are not so much
artful, as Hamilton contends, but they are full of ‘intrigues’ and the powerful among
them prone to ‘tyrrany’. Political ambition is dangerous because it can hide behind a
‘mask’.
Only a constitution can protect the weak from an all-powerful executive, and this is
actuated by an almost religious ‘zeal’ and ‘passion’ on behalf of the people who are
‘friend[s]’ of ‘liberty’. They realize that a ‘cure’ to counter ‘instability, injustice and
confusion’ and other ‘mortal diseases’ is required. Poor government is a ‘factious
spirit’ which has become ‘tainted’.
The constitution which the ‘friend of liberty’ builds is a structure, which will be
‘well-constructed’ by the ‘virtuous citizen’, one who ‘contemplates’. A politician can
be like a seer or other wise man if he (sic.) is ‘enlightened’.
Thus, in contrast to Hamilton, Madison appeals to people’s desire for liberty founded
on contemplation and virtue. The government is almost a spiritual being which can be
a force for good or evil. It requires politicians who are ‘subservient to the public
good’ and leaders like ships’ captains who are ‘at the helm’. For Madison politics is
also a journey with ‘remote considerations’ (i.e. planning), and good politicians are
those who can provide ‘relief’ to the people. There are some similar metaphors to
those of Hamilton, but Madison’s experience is basically about the spiritual journey
towards political goodness. Virtuous people appoint good governments and good
governments foster virtue among the people.
Madison’s imagery and metaphor is all about the mapping of spiritual values onto the
language. Hamilton, perhaps more in touch with what people experienced because of
his ‘simple’ origins, is much more physical in his portrayal of the state of a nation
without unity. Governments who were bad excited ‘horror’ and ‘disgust’,
governments are fragile, can become ‘disfigured’ or ‘dismembered’, they can
dissolve. Politicians are full of ‘arts’ and sometimes ‘bitterness’, they can suffer
‘convulsions’ and be ‘malignant’ in their ‘passions’. Politics is a raging ‘torrent’ full
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of ‘love’ and ‘jealousy’. Here is a man who is passionate about his topic, and he is so
from first hand experience. His explanations are physical, visceral and pragmatic.
The Disputed Papers
I will now look at the disputed Federalist Papers, in particular Nos. 50 and 51.
Turning to Paper No. 50, there is very little evidence of the visceral or physical.
Again, we see the idea of political dissent as a ‘disease’ which requires a ‘remedy’,
but for the author of No. 50 the cure is a new Constitution, because the old one has
been ‘breached’, rather like a fortress or other powerful structure. People who violate
the Constitution commit ‘infractions’, a powerful word in the eighteenth century,
suggestive of sin and a lack of a spiritual approach, and also suggestive that the writer
of No. 50 sees the Constitution as comparable with sacred text. For this writer it is not
politics which is an edible dish, so much as mental activity, which is also a tool, as
evidenced in his ‘satisfactory illustration of the reasoning I have employed’. It is not
just the Constitution which is like a building, but also the law, cf. his ‘legislative
constructions’, and here too, liberty is a being in danger, as in ‘the extinction of
liberty’.
In Paper 51, another disputed Federalist Paper, we again have the notion of the
Constitution as a structure with an ‘interior’ as well as an ‘exterior’ and a
‘foundation’. To view this structure we need to see it in a ‘clearer light’ and form a
‘correct judgment’ of its ‘principles’. The people are ‘the fountain of authority’ (cf.
Madison’s ‘virtuous citizens’). Political activity’s excesses are not viewed as
‘passions’ (as in Hamilton) but opposing parties are, as in No. 50 like armies with
their ‘columns’, with principles requiring a ‘defense’ which is ‘commensurate with
the attack’.
This writer does not seem to view human nature as vicious and even depraved, which
is implied in Hamilton to some extent, but optimistically holds that with the correct
checks, human ambition can be held in place, “by so contriving the interior structure
of the government as that its several constituent parts may, by their mutual relations,
be the means of keeping each other in their proper places”, cf. Madison’s ‘connected
and blended’ government departments.
Whereas Hamilton emphasises the evil results of bad politics as being due to the base
passions of humanity, Madison exhorts the virtuous citizen to build a structure which
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will bring out the spiritual qualities of good government. They have the same end in
view, but a fundamentally different conception of humanity, and they express this in
terms of the radically different kinds of metaphor they use.
I therefore suggest that the evidence so far points to Madison as the author of the
disputed papers, at least of Nos. 50 and 51. As the reader will be aware, this is in line
with Mosteller and Wallace (1964) and other sources.
However, as interesting as this observation is, it is far from conclusive. It certainly
appears to be the case that Madison’s use of conceptual metaphor is much closer to
that of the disputed Federalist Papers than that of Hamilton, but how can we test this,
other than through the use of various non-linguistic means referred to above, and as
exemplified by Mosteller and Wallace?
Testing the notion of conceptual metaphor
The first test I carried out was to isolate lexical words which appeared to be important
conveyors of conceptual metaphor. Specifically, I looked at categories of
metaphorical value, such as the notion of structure and construction; ideas
encompassing disease, ailment, illness, cure, remedy, malady, disfigurement,
mortality (of the state, or government); physical reactions such as horror, disgust;
concepts relating to wisdom; notions of cunning (including ‘arts’ and ‘artful’); as well
as those occurring in respect of ideas of virtue, vice, violence, greed, envy, excess,
vanity, hope, passion, and spirit.
From these various categories 111 words (including head words and lemmas) were
isolated. Adjusting for overall length of each corpus (Hamilton 117,093 words;
Madison 41,325 words and Disputed 22,241 words) I then looked at the individual
relative frequency of each word for each corpus. It should be stressed that these words
are central to the metaphorical concepts of the entire Federalist corpus, and as such
critical to the expression of meaning within the texts, even though their actual number
is low relative to the entire lexicon of the corpus. Of the 111 words selected in this
way, Hamilton’s frequency was closest to Madison’s 29 times, Hamilton’s to the
Disputed texts 27 times, and Madison’s to the Disputed texts 49 times. Thus, for 44%
of these important categories of words Madison appears to be much closer to
Disputed than he does to Hamilton, and Madison appears to be much closer to
Disputed than Hamilton does.
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In the course of reading the Federalist Papers it also became apparent that Hamilton
frequently refers to ‘man’ or ‘men’ in such phrases as ‘the good man’ or ‘men of
virtue’ (‘reason’, ‘prudence’, etc.). Madison by contrast appears to refer to ‘people’ in
preference to ‘man’ or ‘men’ or, on the other hand, to avoid altogether those
constructions requiring specific reference to individuals or groups. In order to test this
idea, eleven words in this category were searched for including ‘man’, ‘woman’,
‘women’, ‘men’, ‘citizen/s’, ‘people’, ‘person/s’, and the subject pronouns ‘he’ and
‘she’. For eight of these eleven words Madison’s distribution was closer to Disputed
than Hamilton’s was and closer to Disputed than it was to Hamilton’s. In fact words
which imply gender, or gender-related issues turn out to be quite significant in the
Federalist Papers, given the prevalent eighteenth century assumption that citizens are
‘men’. However, in this regard, Madison appears to have been somewhat ahead of his
time, in that he tended, as noted above, to make this assumption of masculine
superiority somewhat less frequently than Hamilton did. The use of the pronoun ‘she’
is also interesting in the corpus. In using ‘she’ Hamilton usually refers to one of the
States, such as Vermont, New York, Connecticut or Pennsylvania, or to a country,
such as Britain. The only time he uses it with reference to a person is where he gives
an example of the rights of women to dispose of their property. He uses it once only
with reference to America. By contrast, both Madison and Disputed always use ‘she’
to refer to America.
With regard to the idea of ‘America’ and its proposed form of constitutional
government, Hamilton and Madison adopt significantly different views. Both talk
about the necessity of America uniting in order to be strong against any form of
foreign threat, but Hamilton adopts a more nationalistic tone, referring to America
becoming “the broad and solid foundation of other edifices”, the need to assert
American superiority over other races, “Facts have too long supported these arrogant
pretensions of the Europeans. It belongs to us to vindicate the honor of the human
race, and to teach that assuming brother, moderation”, and the need for the American
states “bound together in a strict and indissoluble Union” to “concur in erecting one
great American system, superior to the control of all transatlantic force or influence,
and able to dictate the terms of the connection between the old and the new world”.
Madison is noticeably less xenophobic, his sole reference to America in this
connection being the nobility of a constitutional America which will be a happy
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occurrence “for the whole human race”. In the disputed papers there is, also, no
reference to America erecting a system of constitutional government which would be
an example, by aggression or force, to the rest of the world. In this respect the
Disputed papers also resemble Madison more closely than they do Hamilton.
I believe, also, that Madison was far in advance of many of his compatriots with
respect to questions of African-American rights and slave questions. His papers state
it as a good thing that the importation of slaves into America was to cease in 1808,
while the Disputed papers refer to the fact that some states have allowed ‘negroes’
(sic.) to hold property as a benefit to those states. Hamilton does not mention
African-Americans at all. I am not suggesting that Hamilton was a racist, nor am I
particularly trying to hold Madison up as an exemplar of ‘advanced’ race relations,
but there do seem to be more similarities with regard to questions such as these
between Madison and the Disputed papers than between Madison and Hamilton or
Hamilton and the Disputed papers.
Conclusion
In this paper I have attempted to put into practice some of Lakoff’s (1994) ideas with
respect to conceptual metaphor, but specifically applying them to authorship
attribution. I have tried to test the tentative conclusion reached earlier that the
conceptual metaphor found in the Disputed papers indicated authorship by Madison
rather than Hamilton by the simple device of computing the frequency of words
relating to key metaphorical concepts. Additionally, I have I believe successfully
inferred from Madison’s writings certain key attitudinal differences between him and
Hamilton with regard to questions relating to human dignity and general human,
including international, relations, which questions I believe support the conjecture that
Madison rather than Hamilton is the author of the Disputed papers. As a result of this
investigation I suggest that the method proposed here, perhaps in conjunction with
appropriate statistical models such as those conducted by Mosteller and Wallace, can
— in some cases —provide a sound basis for authorship attribution of disputed text, if
texts of similar register, type and genre are being compared.
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