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anxious to apportion the powers to the features and organization of the government, and to see abuse in the exercise of power more effectually guarded against. It is suggested, that state officers, from interested motives will oppose the constitution presented—I see no reason for this, their places in general will not be effected, but new openings to offices and places of profit must evidently be made by the adoption of the constitution in its present form.

Your’s &c.

The Federal Farmer.

PUBLIUS REPLIES

Alexander Hamilton: The Federalist No. 1 (October 27, 1787)

PAGE 481

James Madison: The Federalist No. 10 (November 22, 1787)

PAGE 485

James Madison: The Federalist No. 14 (November 30, 1787)

PAGE 492

Alexander Hamilton: The Federalist No. 15 (December 1, 1787)

PAGE 497

James Madison: The Federalist No. 38 (January 12, 1788)

PAGE 505

James Madison: The Federalist No. 46 (January 29, 1788)

PAGE 513

James Madison: The Federalist No. 48 (February 1, 1788)

PAGE 519

James Madison: The Federalist No. 51 (February 6, 1788)

PAGE 524

Alexander Hamilton: The Federalist No. 70 (March 15, 1788)

PAGE 529

Alexander Hamilton: The Federalist No. 78 (June 14, 1788)

PAGE 537

By FAR THE MOST sustained defense of the Constitution were the eighty-five essays published as The Federalist under the pen name Publius. The project was conceived by Alexander Hamilton, with the specific purpose of making a broad case for ratification in his own state of New York, where ratification faced an uphill battle. Hamilton recruited John Jay, the secretary for foreign affairs, as a coauthor, and then turned to James Madison as well. Extensive scholarly analysis has established that Hamilton wrote by far the greatest share of the essays, fifty-one in total; Madison contributed another twenty-nine, and Jay, owing to poor health, only five. Hamilton’s essays were principally devoted to the importance of establishing an effective national government, armed with substantial powers over defense and taxation, and to the construction of the executive and judiciary departments. Madison wrote primarily about the complexities of federalism, the separation of powers, and the construction of the legislature.

Though Madison wrote fewer essays, his contributions have received greater scholarly attention. One essay in particular, Federalist No. 10, has been subjected to repeated analysis. Here Madison challenged one of the standing assumptions of eighteenth-century political thinking: that republican governments could safely operate only in small, relatively homogeneous societies, where citizens would be united by common interests. Madison disputed this conventional wisdom in two major ways. He argued, first, that human nature and the divergent interests that any modern society would inevitably create made unanimity of political opinion impossible. Faction was an inevitable element of politics, and the real problem was to figure out how to make it safe for liberty. Here Madison offered his second major argument. Far from being a danger to the liberty that all republicans prized, a diversity of interests would be conducive to its protection. Madison repeated this argument in the final passages of Federalist No. 51, as he concluded a series of five essays devoted to explaining why a rigid separation of powers among the three departments of government would prove less effective at preserving the balance between them than the overlapping checks and balances the Constitution proposed. In part because it was so long-winded, The Federalist had little apparent impact on the ratification struggle. Its value lies elsewhere: in the fact that the two men who arguably possessed the brightest and most creative intellects among the generation who came of age with the Revolution used these essays to express some of their leading ideas about constitutional government and the challenges facing the republic. Skeptics sometimes scoff that The Federalist is really only so much campaign propaganda. But in fact, the division of labor