The Federalist Papers

The Federalist Papers comprise eighty-five essays written to persuade New Yorkers to ratify the Constitution of the United States in 1787-8. Written by key players in the American Revolution, they made a case for a new, united nation. They are the most important work of political thought to have come out of America.

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'A nation without a national government is an awful spectacle.'

In the winter of 1787-8 a series of eighty-five essays appeared in the New York press; the purpose of the essays was to persuade the citizens of New York State to ratify the Constitution of the United States. The three authors - Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay - were respectively the first Secretary of the Treasury, the fourth President, and the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in American history. Each had played a crucial role in the events of the American Revolution; together they were convinced of the need to weld thirteen disparate and newly-independent states into a union. Their essays make the case for a new and united nation, governed under a written Constitution that endures to this day.

The Federalist Papers are an indispensable guide to the intentions of the founding fathers who created the United States, and a canonical text in the development of western political thought. This new edition pays full attention to the classical learning of their authors and the historical examples they deploy.
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