In Politico Andrew Glass reminds us of the Federalist Papers and their important role in the ratification of the United States Constitution.
The first in a series of 85 essays by “Publius,” the combined pen name of Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay, appeared in the Independent Journal, a New York newspaper, on this day in 1787. Publius’ essays urged New Yorkers to support ratification of the U.S. Constitution, which had been approved by the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia on Sept. 17.
Hamilton, who led off the series, wrote: “After an unequivocal experience of the inefficiency of the subsisting federal government, you are called upon to deliberate on a new Constitution for the United States of America. The subject speaks its own importance; comprehending in its consequences 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.”
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