The Federalist Papers

Written variously by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison under the common pseudonym of Publius, these were originally published as newspaper pieces. The immediate objective was to encourage the adoption of the new Constitution in the place of the nation's original written constitution, the Articles of Confederation. However, the authors plainly had in view a longer-term goal as well, to explain and justify the system of government embodied in the Constitution.

How effective are the Federalist Papers in meeting these objectives? On one level that is answered by events. The Constitution itself has survived as the basis of American government, with only one serious breakdown, the American Civil War, after which with some amendments regarding slavery and civil rights the system was restored. In the same period of time, France has had five republics, two monarchies, and two empires. The Federalist Papers, effective at the time in persuading public opinion in favor

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r an oppress the rest. Moreover, if the writers of the Federalist Papers were critical of democracy, they were on the other hand emphatic in calling for a government rooted ultimately in popular consent expressed through elections, at a time when this was a radical position. Indeed, as men of their time, their thought should perhaps be viewed in that context. Toward that end, the remainder of this essay will consider the ideas of the Federalist Papers in comparison to those of a contemporary thinker, the historian Edward Gibbon. Gibbon was not a political philospher as such, but in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire he had much to say about political institutions and their consequences for the society ruled by them. By implication he thus set forth a political philosophy, one rooted broadly in the same experience, that of classical antiquity, from which the authors of the Federalist Papers drew their own examples. What Gibbon particularly disapproved of, as emerges constantly in his work, is despotism. He does not define despotism as such, but what is meant arises clearly enough from his account of various emperors' excesses and misdeeds, as "incompatible with personal security or the rights of property" as the
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Approximate Word count = 2174
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)

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