The Federalist Papers are a set of 85 essays written by
James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay, published in 1787 and 1788.
These papers were written in defense of, and promoting the new American
Constitution.
At this time in history, America’s leaders knew that their
current system of government, the Articles of Confederation, were not able to
sustain their new and fragile country. The Articles were considerably flawed;
the state governments held all of the power, and the central government held
very little power.
This was the time when the first two political factions
arose – the Federalist being in favor of the Constitution and the Anti-Federalists
who weren’t exactly in favor of the Constitution.
In 1787 when the first Constitutional Convention was called
to convene in Philadelphia, the majority of the delegates believed that they
were there to revise the Articles and fix the problems that were present in the
country.
However, from the
onset of the convention, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and others went
with the sole idea of creating a new government, rather than fixing the
existing one.
Following the submission of the new Constitution to the
states for ratification, opponents of the new government began to voice their
opinions in the New York Press. These articles would become to be known as “The
Anti-Federalist Papers”.
In response, Alexander Hamilton decided to write an
extensive defense and explanation of the Constitution for the people of New
York. He later recruited John Jay, James Madison, and “Publius” to help him
write his essays.
People who believe that the Constitution is a living
document tend to argue that, “The Federalist papers were written to support the
ratification of the Constitution only and are biased papers that don’t explain
the intend behind the Constitution.”
However, this could not be more wrong. The entire purpose
behind the essays was to support the ratification of the new Constitution as well as explain each part of the
Constitution and why it was written the way it was.
Moreover, Hamilton and Madison, who wrote the majority of
the papers, were in attendance at the Constitutional Convention and they were among the thirty-nine signers.
Because they were there and participated in the debates, they would have a more
working knowledge of the intent behind each part of the new document.
Therefore when explaining the Constitution in the papers,
they were able to give first-hand knowledge behind the intend and creation of
the Constitution.
This can be seen with the second Amendment for example.
Those who are against the Second Amendment say that it only grants the right to
bear arms to a militia, or in modern times, our military. However, both
Hamilton and Jefferson explain that the Second Amendment protects our
individual right to bear arms and without that right, the people are
subordinates of a tyrannical government.
In current times, our government continues to grow and
become bloated well beyond its needs. Many people believe that our government’s
hands and power extends well beyond that, which is allotted to it in the
Constitution.
And it’s true.
Our government is becoming more and more progressive every
day. With this “progress” comes programs and policies that go against
everything that the Constitution stands for.
In addition, the majority of people in our country are not well
educated on the Constitution, such as what is says and why it says what it
does. This is probably where the largest problem lies. If people don’t know the
law that protects them, how are they going to be able to identify when the
government oversteps those bounds?
The simple answer is that they won’t know. Without working
knowledge of the Constitution, a common person will become a subordinate of the
government.
This is why we need a modern set of Federalist Papers. More
than two hundred years ago, they were written to support the ratification of
the new document as well as explain to the people the intent behind it.
Well, with the extreme lack of Constitutional knowledge, we
need a new set that explains, in modern terms, what the Constitution means and
why it is important that, instead of continuously “progressing” away from the
Constitution, we need to find our roots and mold our government and policies
back towards the Constitution and something that would make our Founding
Fathers proud.
The Federalist Papers arguably had a profound impact on the
ratification of the Constitution. We are in need of a profound awakening, and
without one, we may be on a track to single handedly destroy the “more perfect
union” that was created for us so many generations ago.