As the “battle of the pens” over ratification of the Constitution accelerated in newspapers in Philadelphia, New York, and elsewhere, Alexander Hamilton devised an ambitious project to present a methodical explication of the entire Constitution. Although Hamilton harbored his own reservations about some provisions of the Constitution, his greater fear was the likelihood of a “dismemberment of the Union and monarchies in different portions of it” if it were rejected.
In early March 1787, Hamilton had been selected, along with John Lansing and Robert Yates, to represent New York at the Constitutional Convention. Convinced the Convention was exceeding its authority to propose amendments to the Articles of Confederation by proposing an entirely new form of government, Lansing and Yates left in protest in early July. For his part, Hamilton attended the Convention sporadically, having annoyed many of his fellow delegates on June 18 with a speech that droned on for six hours in which he compared the Virginia and New Jersey plans and then proposed a plan of his own.
However, Hamilton returned to Philadelphia in the latter part of August, participated actively in the Convention’s deliberations, and signed the final draft of the Constitution. Like most of the delegates from other States, Hamilton recognized the Constitution was the product of many compromises, forged by men who balanced the interests of their own States with the imperative of establishing an effective national government. It is not perfect, he pressed, but it is the best available solution.
To effectuate his plan, Hamilton recruited John Jay, James Madison, and William Duer. A descendant of French Huguenots, Jay had been elected to the Second Continental Congress and served as its President in 1778 -1779. From 1779 to 1782 he was the United States ambassador to Spain where he secured financial aid for the United States and served with Benjamin Franklin and John Adams to negotiate the Treaty of Paris, ending the Revolutionary War. Earlier, in 1776, Jay had been instrumental in drafting the constitution for the newly independent State of New York.
Having secured Jay as a partner in his plan, Hamilton approached James Madison and Hamilton’s friend William Duer, a British-born merchant, planter, and land speculator. Like Jay, Duer was a member of the committee which drafted New York’s constitution and served in the first legislature of New York. Although his writing was “intelligent and spritely” and he drafted “two or more papers,” according to James Madison, “they were not continued, nor did they make a part of the printed collection.” Gouverneur Morris was also approached by Hamilton but declined due to pressing business concerns.
Madison was invaluable to the enterprise. In addition to having authored the Virginia Plan, his personal notes and perfect attendance at the Convention provided a unique understanding of the arguments underlying each section of the Constitution. However, both Hamilton and Madison had to take care to avoid betraying the confidentiality of the Convention’s deliberations.
The primary purpose of Hamilton’s plan was to persuade the citizens of New York to support the Constitution in advance of that State’s ratifying convention. Public opinion would be important, and the Constitution had powerful enemies, including New York Governor George Clinton.
The first essay appeared in The New York Independent Journal on October 27. Writing under the pseudonym Publius, Hamilton posed a fundamental question, “whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force.” At stake, he continued, was “nothing less than the existence of the UNION, the safety and welfare of the parts of which it is composed, the fate of an empire in many respects the most interesting in the world.”
He addressed the citizens of New York directly, advising them that “you are called upon to deliberate on a new Constitution” and the wrong choice would “deserve to be considered as the general misfortune of mankind.” This was serious business and they were to be wary of men whose “ambition, avarice, personal animosity, party opposition and many other motives…are apt to operate as well upon those who support as those who oppose the right side of a question.” They should resist any arguments “other than those which may result from the evidence of truth.”
Unabashedly supportive of the Constitution, Publius/Hamilton proposed, “in a series of papers,” to discuss the importance of the Union; the insufficiency of the Articles of Confederation; the necessity of an “energetic” government;” the “conformity of the Constitution to the true principles of republican government;” and the security its adoption “will afford to the preservation of that species of government to liberty and to property.”
After the first seven essays were published, they began to appear at the rate of four per week and were completed in May 1788. The original series was anticipated to be between twenty and twenty-five essays, but eventually reached eighty-five. Collectively, they served as the most effective and comprehensive set of arguments and debating points for advocates of the new Constitution.
The first thirty-six essays were published in book form on March 22, 1788, followed by a volume of the additional forty-eight in May,1788, just days after the last essay was published in the newspapers. One of the essays was divided into two parts, making a total of eighty-five. Meanwhile, ratification debates continued in full force in Pennsylvania as the date for its ratification convention approached.