The Federalist Papers - Alexander Hamilton [345]
Federalist 64
p. 391. to theaffairs of menmust have perceived thatthere are tidesin them: The indirect quotation is from William Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar, Act 4, scene 3, line 218.
Federalist 65
p. 397. After having been sentenced to a perpetualostracism…: In ancient Athens, ostracism was a method by which to banish an unpopular citizen for a period of ten years. Banishment followed a vote held especially for that purpose and required the assent of at least 6,000 citizens.
Federalist 67
p. 406. We have been almost taught to tremble at the terrific visages of murderingjanizaries…: Janissaries were members of a special unit of the army of the Ottoman Empire. Established in the fourteenth century, it acquired renown for ferociousness and loyalty in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. At first composed of captives taken in war, the Janissary corps was later made up of Christian youths levied in the Balkan provinces and forcibly converted to Islam. The Janissaries were originally subject to strict rules, including celibacy, but by the eighteenth century, the unit had declined precipitously and was involved in the political turmoil of the decaying empire. After an unsuccessful revolt in 1826, the corps was finally disbanded.
p. 406. and to blush at the unveiled mysteries of a futureseraglio: A seraglio is a harem or an enclosure guarded by eunuchs where the Turkish potentate would install his numerous wives. Often, the seraglio was the site of palace intrigues and assassinations.
p. 407. a writerwho…has had no inconsiderable share in the applauses of his party: The reference is to Cato, an Anti-Federalist writer who is often identified as Governor George Clinton, of New York. The essay cited in Federalist 67 concerned the dangers of the presidency and its similarity to the British monarchy:
He [Algernon Sidney, in Discourses Concerning Government II] remarks further, that it was also thought, that free cities by frequent elections of magistrates became nurseries of great and able men, every man endeavoring to excel others, that he might be advanced to the honor he had no other title to, than what might arise from his merit, or reputation, but the framers of this perfect government, as it is called, have departed from this democratical principle…and have given to the executive the unprecedented power of making temporary senators, in case of vacancies, by resignation or otherwise…this temporary member, during his time of appointment, will of course act by a power derived from the executive, and for, and under his immediate influence.
Cato was simply wrong on this point. As Publius indignantly demonstrates, the power of filling vacancies in the Senate is "expressly allotted to the executives of the individual States." Cato’s essay appeared in the November 22, 1787, issue of The New-York Journal, and is reprinted in The Complete Anti-Federalist, ed., Herbert J. Storing (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), vol. 2, pp. 113–116.
Federalist 68
p. 410. The most plausible of these, who has appeared in print…: This is a reference to the Federal Farmer, the pseudonym of an Anti-Federalist—sometimes identified as Richard Henry Lee of Virginia—who wrote essays opposing the purported tendency of the Constitution to consolidate the union and to destroy the states. Here, Publius refers to a passage in the third letter (Storing, 2.8.29) in which the Federal Farmer grudgingly approves the scheme for selecting the president:
The election of this officer [the vice president], as well as of the president of the United States seems to be properly secured; but when we examine the powers of the president, and the forms of the executive, we shall perceive that the general government, in this part, will have a strong tendency