according to the views of the respective authors; second, that which has been written and published since the Constitution has become the greatest factor in our organic law, and which includes all that has been written for the purpose of expounding, interpreting and construing its various provisions, or reviewing them from historical and legal standpoints.

§ 235. Pre-ratification literature a large element in procuring adoption of the Constitution. To the first class of literature the adoption of the Constitution was largely due. The able work of its sponsors and defenders in the State constitutional conventions was, of course, the prime factor in procuring its ratification in eleven of the thirteen States; at the same time, however, that the State conventions were in progress a great national debate was conducted in the newspapers, and also by the publicists of the time. It was an age of pamphleteering; many of the most prominent Federalists and Anti-Federalists published their views on the subject under assumed names-generally classic, but sometimes provincial-according to the then prevalent custom.1 The records of this great debate form a valuable part of our National literature, and in collecting, collating and publishing them in a convenient and lasting form Paul Leicester

$235.

Federal Farmer," credited to Richard Henry Lee; "Marcus," credited to James Iredell; "Civis," credited to David Ramsay; “A Columbian Patriot," credited to Elbridge Gerry; "A Citizen of America," credited to Noah Webster; "A Citizen of New York," credited to John Jay; "A Plebeian," credited to Melancthon Smith; "A Citizen of Philadelphia," credited to Peletiah Webster; "Fabius," credited to John Dickinson; "Aristides," credited to Alexander Contee Hanson; "An American Citizen," credited to Tench Coxe; letters of Edmund Randolph, James Wilson, Luther Martin, Hugh Williamson, and others appeared over their own

The following names appear in Ford's Collection of Essays and Pamphlets: "Cassius," supposed to be written by James Sullivan; ‘Agrippa,” credited, though not definitely, to James Winthrop; "A Landholder," generally credited to Oliver Ellsworth; " ACountryman" and "A Citizen of New Haven," both credited to Roger Sherman; "Cato," credited to George Clinton; "Casar," credited to Alexander Hamil ton; "Sydney," credited to Robert Yates; Caution," credited to Samuel Chase; "A Friend of the Constitution," credited to Daniel Carroll; "A Plaindealer," credited to Roane Spencer; "A Letter of a Steady and Open Republican," names. credited to Charles Pinckney; "A

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Ford has rendered an important service to his country, and one which is, and always will be, appreciated by students of constitutional history.2

§ 236. This chapter devoted to pre-ratification literature. -This chapter will be exclusively devoted to the literature of the pre-ratification period, and the succeeding chapter to that which has been produced since the Constitution became the law of the land.

$237. The Federalist; its appearance and its effect.The foremost position in the list of pre-ratification literature must be given to the eighty-five numbers of the Federalist, which, appearing under the single assumed, and at that 2 The best collection of these pam- An extensive bibliography of this phlets can be found in two volumes: class of Constitutional literature Pamphlets on the Constitution will be found at pp. 385-441 of the of the United States, published" Pamphlets," which will also be during its Discussion by the People, 1787-1788, edited with notes and a Bibliography, by Paul Leicester Ford, Brooklyn, N. Y. 1888.

Essays on the Constitution of the United States, published during its Discussion by the People, 1787-1788, edited by Paul Leicester Ford, Brooklyn, N. Y., Historical Printing Club, 1892. § 237.

found as an appendix to the second volume of Curtis' Constitutional History of the United States.

Some of the pamphlets and essays published in Pennsylvania will be found at the end of McMaster and Stone's Pennsylvania and the Federal Constitution.

See also $250 and note thereunder, p. 387, post.

NOTES ON THE FEDERALIST.

1 EDITIONS.

There are over twenty-four different editions of the Federalist enumerated in Paul Leicester Ford's bibliography of the Constitution, compiled in 1888 and included as an appendix to his Pamphlets on the Consti tution. Ford's bibliography is also found at pp. 709, et seq. of volume II of Curtis' Constitutional History of the United States; a list of 24 editions will also be found in Lodge's Federalist, pp. xxxv, et seq. The author of this volume has consulted four editions of the Federalist, compiled and annotated respectively, by Henry B. Dawson, Henry Cabot Lodge, Paul Leicester Ford and J. C. Hamilton. References will not be given in notes to the extracts from the Federalist in this, and the succeeding sections, as editions vary as to paging, but the numbers are practically the same in all; the only change being that the insertion of No. XXX in modern editions makes a difference of one in subsequent numbers (see Dawson's edition, p. lv). The author has followed the text in the edition edited by Henry Cabot Lodge and published by G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York and London, 1894.

$ 237 time unrecognized, name of Publius, stand as a monument to the joint and co-operating genius of Hamilton, Madison and Jay, whose efforts as delegates to the Federal and State conventions, and as authors of the Federalist, undoubtedly accomplished more practical results than those of any other three men in originally framing the Constitution in the Federal Convention, and finally procuring its ratification by the States. It not only served its purpose in America, in advocating the adoption of the Constitution, but it has also taken its place in Europe as a text book of high authority on popular government. The Supreme Court of the United States

2 AN ENGLISH VIEW OF THE FEDERALIST.

"The antecedents of a body of institutions like this, and its mode of growth, manifestly deserve attentive study; and fortunately the materials for the inquiry are full and good. The papers called the 'Federalist,' which were published in 1787 and 1788 by Hamilton, Madison, and Jay, but which were chiefly from the pen of Hamilton, were originally written to explain the new Constitution of the United States, then awaiting ratification, and to dispel misconstructions of it which had got abroad. They are thus, undoubtedly, an ex post facto defence of the new institutions, but they show us with much clearness either the route by which the strongest minds among the American statesmen of that period had traveled to the conclusions embodied in the Constitution, or the arguments by which they had become reconciled to them. The 'Federalist' has generally excited something like enthusiasm in those who have studied it, and among these there have been some not at all given to excessive eulogy. Talleyrand strongly recommended it; and Guizot said of it that, in the application of the elementary principles of government to practical administration, it was the greatest work known to him. An early number of the Edinburgh Review' (No. 24), described it as a work little known in Europe, but which exhibits a profundity of research and an acuteness of understanding which would have done honour to the most illustrious statesmen of modern times.' The American commendations of the Federalist' are naturally even less qualified. 'I know not,' wrote Chancellor Kent, of any work on the principles of free government that is to be compared in instruction and in intrinsic value to this small and unpretending volume of the 'Federalist; ' not even if we resort to Aristotle, Cicero, Machiavel, Montesquieu, Milton, Locke, or Burke. It is equally admirable in the depth of its wisdom, the comprehensiveness of its views, the sagacity of its reflections, and the freshness, patriotism, candour, simplicity, and eloquence, with which its truths are uttered and recommended.' Those who have attentively read these papers will not think such praise pitched, on the whole, too high. Perhaps the part of it least thoroughly deserved is that given to their supposed profundity of research.

has on more than one occasion referred to it in deciding con

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There are few traces in the Federalist' of familiarity with previous speculations on politics, except those of Montesquieu in the 'Esprit des Lois,' the popular book of that day. The writers attach the greatest importance to all Montesquieu's opinions. They are much discomposed by his assertion, that Republican government is necessarily associated with a small territory, and they are again comforted by his admission, that this difficulty might be overcome by a confederate Republic. Madison indeed had the acuteness to see that Montesquieu's doctrine is as often polemical as philosophical, and that it is constantly founded on a tacit contrast between the institutions of his own country, which he disliked, with those of England, which he admired. But still his analysis, as we shall hereafter point out, had much influence upon the founders and defenders of the American Constitution. On the whole, Guizot's criticism of the Federalist' is the most judicious. It is an invaluable work on the application of the elementary principles of government to practical administration. Nothing can be more sagacious than its anticipation of the way in which the new institutions would actually work, or more conclusive than its exposure of the fallacies which underlay the popular objections to some of them.

"It is not to be supposed that Hamilton, Jay, and Madison were careless of historical experience. They had made a careful study of many forms of government, ancient and modern. Their observations on the ancient Republics, which were shortly afterwards to prove so terrible a snare to French political theorists, are extremely just. The cluster of commonwealths woven together in the United Netherlands' is fully examined, and the weaknesses of this anomalous confederacy are shrewdly noted. The remarkable structure of the Romano-German Empire is depicted, and there is reason to suspect that these institutions, now almost forgotten, influenced the framers of the American Constitution, both by attraction and by repulsion. But far the most important experience to which they appealed was that of their own country, at a very recent date. The earliest link had been supplied to the revolted colonies by the first or American Continental' Congress, which issued the Declaration of Independence. There had subsequently been the Articles of Confederation,' ratified in 1781. These earlier experiments, their demonstrable miscarriage in many particulars, and the disappointments to which they gave rise, are a storehouse of instances and a plentiful source of warning and reflection to the writers who have undertaken to show that their vices are removed in the Constitution of 1787-89.

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"Nevertheless, there is one fund of political experience upon which the Federalist' seldom draws, and that is the political experience of Great Britain. The scantiness of these references is at first sight inexplicable. The writers must have understood Great Britain better than any other country, except their own. They had been British subjects during most of their lives. They had scarcely yet ceased to breathe the atmosphere of the British Parliament and to draw strength from

stitutional questions, always with respect, although on some points it has not agreed with the authors, notably in regard

its characteristic disturbances. Next to their own stubborn valour, the chief secret of the colonists' success was the incapacity of the English generals, trained in the stiff Prussian system soon to perish at Jena, to adapt themselves to new conditions of warfare, an incapacity which newer generals, full of admiration for a newer German system, were again to manifest at Majuba Hill against a meaner foe. But the colonists had also reaped signal advantage from the encouragements of the British Parliamentary Opposition. If the King of France gave ‘aid,' the English Opposition gave perpetual comfort' to the enemies of the King of England. It was a fruit of the English party system which was to reappear, amid much greater public dangers, in the Peninsular War; and the revelation of domestic facts, the assertion of domestic weakness, were to assist the arms of a military tyrant, as they had assisted the colonists fighting for independence. Various observations in the Federalist' on the truculence of party spirit may be suspected of having been prompted by the recollection of what an Opposition can do. But there could be no open reference to this in its pages; and, on the whole, it cannot but be suspected that the fewness of the appeals to British historical examples had its cause in their unpopularity. The object of Madison, Hamilton, and Jay was to persuade their countrymen; and the appeal to British experience would only have provoked prejudice and repulsion. I hope, however, to show that the Constitution of the United States is coloured throughout by political ideas of British origin, and that it is in reality a version of the British Constitution, as it must have presented itself to an observer in the second half of the last century." (Citing especially Numbers 5, 14, 19, 20, 69 and 70, and referring to Bancroft's History of the Constitution of the United States, vol. II, p. 336.) Popular Government, Sir Henry Sumner Maine, John Murray, London, 1885, Essay IV, pp. 202-207.

A FRENCH VIEW OF THE FEDERALIST.

In Hamilton's edition of the Federalist the following occurs (page lxxxviii), after referring to some of the earliest American editions: "No other edition was published in the United States until the year 1802, three or more translations-the first in 1792-having, in the meantime, appeared in Paris, during the exciting discussions which then occupied the people of France. Talleyrand appreciating it, said to the Duc D'Aranda, envoy at the French Court from Spain-‘Vouz avez lu Le Fédéraliste?'-'Non,' replied D'Aranda,-'Lisez donc lisez,' was the significant answer. Guizot, another distinguished statesman of France, observed, 'In the application of elementary principles of government to practical administration, it was the greatest work known to him.'" See also the opinions of Chancellor KENT and Mr. Justice STORY referred to in Hamilton's Edition of the Federalist immediately following the above quotation.