The Federalist Papers
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The Federalist Papers were written as a series of newspaper columns promoting certain political ideas that the writers wanted to see embodied in the Constitution then being written and argued in Philadelphia. The second of these papers was written by John Jay, and in it he argued that the people of the new country had been for some time definable as one people, that they saw themselves as members of one country, and that the Constitution should recognize and encourage this by the creation of a federal system that would bind the people together more fully. In doing so, he is countering those who see the members of the different states as having unique qualities which differentiates them from members of the other states, and he uses these reasons as a rationale for why there should be a strong federal system. The anti-Federalists promoted states rights over federal rights, while the Federalists sought a stronger central government. Jay is on the side of a strong central government in this passage. Jay assumes that Americans were one people, an idea challenged at the time and one challenged since by historical events such as the Civil War and by political analysts of various stamps. Jay also notes the differences while indicating that he does not see them as being as important as what holds the people together. He notes that the people are of different denominations and backgrounds, but in spite of these differences the people have acted as one nation for some time:
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ded the idea of the Union that was then so important because of the Civil War. De Tocqueville stated that "republic" in the United States meant "the slow and quiet action of society upon itself":
It is an orderly state really founded on the enlightened will of the people. It is a conciliatory government under which resolutions have time to ripen, being discussed with deliberation and executed only when mature (De Tocqueville 395).
Smith challenges the idea that America had the sort of uniformity and equality note by Jay and de Tocqueville, and de Tocqueville indeed looks back to the time of Jay and cites such elements as the vast tract of uninhabited land, the understanding of the people from England of the ideas of the rights and principles of true liberty:
This combination of comparatively equal and open economic and social conditions and an ideological legacy conducive to republicanism and personal liberties made america the perfect laboratory to study the tendencies of a society that from the start was decisively free, egalitarian, and democratic in theory and practice (Smith 551).
Actually, the early nation was not as egalitarian as de Tocqueville assumed, and the earlier Articles of Confederation showed this by devel
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1832
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)
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