The Federalist Papers - Alexander Hamilton [5]
He chose "Publius" as the pseudonym, trumping his adversaries’ invocation of heroes of the late Roman republic (Brutus and Cato) with a reference to one of the founders and saviors of republican Rome—Publius Valerius Publicola, whose biography was paired with that of Solon in Plutarch’s famous Parallel Lives. Solon, the democratic lawgiver of Athens, had lived to see his polity overthrown by a tyrant; but the Roman Publius firmly established his republic, which endured and expanded for centuries. Moreover, after making his laws, Solon had left Athens for ten years in order to avoid having to interpret his legislation. By contrast, Publius had remained in Rome in order to serve as consul, to improve (at a critical moment) the city’s primitive republican laws, and to impart his own spirit of moderation, justice, and wisdom to the regime.10 What did this imply for the American Publius? At least this, that he wished to seize a fleeting moment favorable to constitution-making—when the wise and moderate men of the Federal Convention would have their greatest influence—in order to form a just and enduring republic in an extensive land. To accomplish this he had to speak or, rather, write moderately, which meant, inter alia, confining his ingenuity to the defense and explanation of the proposed Constitution. By offering himself as their prudent counselor, Publius clearly subordinated himself to the people of New York and, by extension, the United States. But insofar as the people were persuaded by his interpretation of the Constitution and of republicanism, his own authority grew—as did the authority of wise statesmen who in the future would seek to guide their country by following his example.
It was clear from the beginning that Hamilton intended The Federalist to match and overmatch the Anti-Federalists’ arguments. He promised in Federalist No. 1 "a satisfactory answer to all the objections…that may seem to have any claim to your attention," and arranged for the papers to be printed and reprinted in the New York City press. At the height of the series, three or four new essays by Publius appeared every week, and each essay would eventually appear in two or three of the city’s five newspapers. Small wonder that frustrated readers sometimes complained (stop "cramming us with the voluminous Publius," groaned "twenty-seven subscribers" to the New York Journal). Not content with dominating the New York discussion, Hamilton also encouraged republication in out-of-state newspapers. To maintain this pace, he needed collaborators. He enlisted John Jay, who early fell ill; he apparently offered a spot to Gouverneur Morris, who declined; and William Duer submitted three essays, which Hamilton rejected. Hamilton and Jay recruited Madison, who was in New York as a Virginia delegate to Congress, at some point (we do not know exactly when) and their collaboration lifted The Federalist to greatness. It also probably extended the series, which initially may have been slated to comprise twenty or twenty-five papers, not the eighty-five that finally resulted.11
We do not know the details of their collaboration. Hamilton (1755–1804) and Madison (1751–1836) had been prominent participants in the debates at the Philadelphia Convention, advocating quite different versions of a stronger and more coherent national government; and they had served together on the Committee of Style, which had prepared the final draft of the Constitution. Jay (1745–1829), the oldest and at that time most distinguished of the group, was a prominent lawyer who had drafted the New York Constitution of 1777 and who had negotiated, alongside Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, the Treaty of 1783 that had officially ended the Revolutionary War. Madison much later famously recalled the haste with which the papers were written, which prevented active collaboration, but he also remembered consulting with Hamilton on some of them.12 Each writer drew on materials he had prepared