Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804) was born in the West Indies and served during the War of Independence as a captain.
His military brilliance was recognized, and he was sent on several important military commissions. He was George
Washington�s secretary and aide-de-camp and in 1787 become a Member of the Constitutional Convention. From 1789
to 1795 he was the first Secretary of the Treasury, and in 1801 he held the casting vote against Burr and for Jefferson.
He fought a duel with Burr and died the next day.
James Madison (1751-1836) was the fourth President of the United States and become known as the �father� of the
Constitution because of his influence in planning it and drawing up the Bill of Rights. He was Secretary of State
under Jefferson, and his main achievement in this role was the purchase of Louisiana from the French. He lived
in Montpelier, Virginia, for eighty-five years, two of which he spent on the governor�s council. He was elected
President in 1809 and again in 1812. During his terms in office he worked to abolish slavery, to disestablish the
Church and to seek peace, although under his command the war against Britain resulted in a U.S. triumph.
John Jay (1745-1829) served the new nation in both law and diplomacy and established important judicial precedents
as first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. A New York attorney from 1768, he won a wide reputation with The Address
to the People of Great Britain, which stated the claims of the colonists. He did not sign the Declaration of Independence
in 1776 but helped to ensure its approval in New York. In 1789 he was appointed the first U.S. Chief Justice and
shaped the Supreme Court procedures. The Jay Treaty of 1794 with Great Britain made him unpopular, and his hopes
of succeeding Washington as President faded. After a spell as Governor of New York he retired to a farm, where
he spent twenty-seven uneventful years.
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Summary
The Federalist Papers-85 essays published in the winter of 1787-8 in the New York press-are some of the most
crucial and defining documents in American political history, laying out the principles that still guide our democracy
today. The three authors-Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay-were respectively the first Secretary
of the Treasury, the fourth President, and the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in American history. Each
had played a crucial role in the events of the American Revolution, and their essays make a compelling case for
a new and united nation, governed under a written Constitution that endures to this day. The Federalist Papers
are an indispensable guide to the intentions of the founding fathers and a canonical text in the development of
western political thought. This is the first edition to explain the many classical, mythological, and historical
references in the text, and to pay full attention to the erudition of the three authors, which enabled them to
place the infant American republic in a long tradition of self-governing states.
Table of Contents
Introduction The Federalist Then and Now Ian Shapiro Shapiro, Ian
Texts
The Federalist Papers 3
The Articles of Confederation 446
The Constitution of the United States of America 456
Amendments to the Constitution of the United States 470
Essays
Unmanifest Destiny John Dunn Dunn, John 483
The Federalist Abroad in the World Donald L. Horowitz Horowitz, Donald L. 502
Protofeminist Responses to the Federalist-Antifederalist Debate Eileen Hunt Botting Botting, Eileen Hunt 533
