The Federalist Papers

Founding Documents · Advocacy pieces, not neutral summaries

Eighty-five essays, published under one shared pen name, written to win over one skeptical audience: voters in New York, where ratification of the new Constitution was in real doubt in 1787 and 1788. Because they were written to win a political fight, they show how the Constitution’s own supporters explained and defended its design.

Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.

James Madison, Federalist No. 51
AuthorsHamilton, Madison, Jay
Shared pen namePublius
Written forNew York ratification
Essays85

Three jobs they still do

Public argument

They were written for a real ratification fight. They are persuasive writing, not neutral explanation.

Structural defense

They explain why power was divided among the branches, between the national government and the states, and among separate institutions.

Interpretive source

Courts, scholars and public officials still cite them when they discuss what the Constitution’s design was meant to do.

Who wrote them, and why the secrecy

All 85 essays were published under the pen name “Publius,” after Publius Valerius, a consul credited with helping found the Roman Republic. The real authors were Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay. Hamilton wrote the largest share, Madison the second largest, and Jay only five, after illness slowed him. One shared name let the essays speak with one voice instead of three. The authors were not publicly confirmed until years later.

The essays ran in New York newspapers from October 1787 to August 1788, during New York’s own ratification debate. The outcome there was not certain. Anti-Federalist opposition was strong, and a New York outside the union would have split New England from the states to the south. The essays were practical persuasion aimed at a specific audience. Their lasting influence on how the Constitution is read came later.

Keep in mind

These essays do not tell the whole ratification story

The Federalist Papers are not a neutral or complete account of the Constitution’s meaning. They are one side’s argument. The Anti-Federalists made serious arguments about federal power and individual rights, and those arguments helped lead to the Bill of Rights. Reading only the Federalist Papers gives one side of a debate that had two.

Why they still matter

Federal courts, including the Supreme Court, cite The Federalist Papers when they interpret what parts of the Constitution were meant to do. Judges who look to the Constitution’s original meaning rely on them often, because they explain the design at the time, from people who helped write it.

They are still the arguments of Hamilton, Madison and Jay. They do not speak for every delegate to the Constitutional Convention, and the same authors sometimes took other positions later. They are essential primary sources, but they are advocacy, not an official commentary.

Most-cited essay

Federalist No. 10 and the problem of faction

In Federalist No. 10, Madison argues that a large, varied republic is better protected against “faction” (organized groups pursuing interests against the rights of others or the good of the whole) than a small one. Many political thinkers of the time believed the opposite. Madison’s answer was that a large republic would hold so many competing factions that no single one could easily take control.

All 85 essays

Each essay has its own page: what it argues, the key passages, and the full text. Choose an author to see only the essays he wrote. Hamilton wrote 51, Madison 29 and Jay 5. Madison’s 29 include 12 that Hamilton and Madison both claimed (most historians now credit Madison) and 3 he wrote with Hamilton.

The founding documents

The Federalist Papers argued for one of the founding documents of the United States. They are all on the site.

The Constitution

The plan of government, 1787.

→

The Bill of Rights

The first ten amendments, 1791.

→

The Amendments

All twenty-seven, with their full text.

→

The Amendment Process

How the Constitution changes, step by step.

→

The Declaration of Independence

Why thirteen colonies separated from Britain, 1776.

→

All founding documents

How the documents fit together.

→