Friday, July 17, 2009 11:32 AM CDT
USA's Yesterdays: Federalist papers -- Essays ensuring the Constitution's ratification
By Hal Malehorn
From time to time the nation’s news media presents debates on various aspects of the United States Constitution. These presentations often feature “strict” constructionists arguing against “loose” constructionists. Each side in the controversy struggles mightily to demonstrate what the Founding Fathers meant by the wording of the Constitution and/or what its significance is for Americans more than two centuries after it was ratified.
But, however acrimonious such disagreements sometimes become, they likely can’t compare with the heat generated during the ratification of that landmark document by the 13 new states. By all accounts (and judging from the narrow votes recorded from New Hampshire to Georgia), those ratification deliberations were all rancorous gatherings.
But even as those fateful state-level deliberations were warming up, several Founding Fathers — notably Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay — were worried. They realized that various aspects of the proposed Constitution would generate much opposition during ratification proceedings.
And so, those three men, between October 1787 and August 1788, published a series of 85 essays explaining (and attempting to justify) the various elements of governance that had been incorporated into the Constitution. These essays appeared anonymously in New York newspapers, and some of them were soon thereafter published in a book titled, “The Federalist.”
One of the principal hazards to ratification was the major difference that separated those who believed in the preeminence of individual states from those who believed in the predominance of a powerful central government. In other words, the question was: In the term “United States,” should the emphasis be on the word “United” or the word “States”?
This major difference had already jeopardized the new nation’s very independence, for during the Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress (organized under the Articles of Confederation) had virtually no “national” powers.
In fact, those Articles of Confederation had stipulated, “Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence.” And while the Continental Congress that was organized under terms of the Articles was granted the power to wage war against Great Britain, it fell to each state to “raise the men and cloth, and arm and equip the army in a solid manner.”
With the peace treaty of 1783, however, it had become apparent that the Articles were not working: the Continental currency was virtually worthless; the unpaid army was approaching mutiny; debts to European powers loomed; and some of the states refused outright to pay the impost that Congress tried to assess for meeting some of the new nation’s grievous fiscal needs.
Thus, a select committee was organized to “improve” the Articles. These men were to meet at Annapolis, Md. But even then, several states objected to this committee, fearing that it would press for changes that would point toward a strong federal government. The Maryland senate, for example, objected to the meeting, for “it may produce other meetings which may have consequences that cannot be foreseen.”
And, these opponents were right: Alexander Hamilton, for one, had arrived at Annapolis determined “to take the opportunity for obtaining a convention to revise the whole of our mode of General Government.” And James Madison, in an effort to find a format likely to work for the new nation, had already been studying the history of various federations and confederations.
In sum, the patriots attending the Annapolis convention concluded that the best answer to the dilemma was to recommend a constitutional convention; this proposed gathering would, in essence, discard the Articles in favor of a brand-new definition of governance.
The Continental Congress reluctantly agreed to this recommendation. And so, in the summer of 1787 wool-clad delegates in secret session had sat and sweltered behind shut and shuttered windows in Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, hammering out details. James Madison had positioned himself in the very front row, where he took copious notes.
But by mid-October, with the new Constitution in hand, Madison reported to George Washington, “The Newspapers begin to teem with vehement & virulent Calumniations of the proposed Gov’t.”
Thus the question arose: Would a majority of the new states ratify the document? To ensure a “yes,” Hamilton, Madison and Jay began writing what are familiarly called “the Federalist Papers.”
Alexander Hamilton, who led the three-man team (and who wrote more than 50 of the essays himself) organized the campaign of support. Writing about a thousand words a day, he prepared essays that treated several broad topics.
These topics included: “The utility of Union to political prosperity; the insufficiency of the present Confederation; the conformity of the Constitution to true principles of government; and the additional security of liberty and property the adoption of the Constitution will preserve.”
Over time, Madison contributed some 27 essays of his own, while John Jay, due to poor health, added only five. All three authors’ work appeared under the pen-name of “Publius.” And while their appearance in print was intended mainly to support ratification in New York, the Federalist Papers eventually influenced ratification proceedings throughout the new Republic.
At the outset of this monumental effort, Madison and Hamilton worked closely together, although the crush of their schedules ultimately made such close work impossible. (Ironically, the two men would soon become bitter political enemies.)
Throughout the endeavor, all three authors, in explaining how the Constitution would work, appealed to reason, not passion.
Eventually, of course, the Constitution was narrowly ratified. The future Chief Justice John Marshall, who participated in ratification proceedings in Virginia, summarized the importance of the Federalist Papers: “They exposed the dangers which hung over the Republic, detected the numerous misrepresentations of the Constitution, and refuted the arguments of its opponents.”
While the Federalist Papers have no force of law, they nevertheless have been cited nearly 300 times in cases that have come before the various members of the U.S. Supreme Court over the past two centuries and more.
As Madison had written for his times (and for ours), “We are the beneficiaries of a nation which accomplished a revolution that has no parallel in the annals of human societ.”
The U.S. Constitution made the effects of that revolution permanent. And the Federalist Papers helped make that permanence possible.
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