The Federalist Papers Explained | What Was the Argument to Ratify the U.S. Constitution?

0:00 Hello and welcome to another Bill of Rights Institute Close Read. Today we have an enormous task in front of us. We’re going to be taking a look at the entirety of The Federalist Papers. All 85 papers. You’ve probably read some of them before. I’ve done videos on 1, 10, 51, and a few others just taking an in depth look. But today we’re going to look at the structure and the argument of the entirety of the papers. I’m hoping that by looking at the whole

0:21 papers you can get a sense of what the argument is that’s laid out in those different essays and get a sense of what they were trying to accomplish when they were writing this huge collection of essays throughout 1787 and 1788. So it helps to know the pathway of how we got to writing The Federalist Papers.

0:43 So the first Constitution of the United States was the Articles of Confederation. These were passed during the American Revolution and that served through the years after the Revolution. But over time different individuals started to think that the Articles of Confederation was not functioning as it needed to to promote prosperity amongst the Union and basically support a federal government. And so a group of delegates gathered in Philadelphia in 1787.

1:05 The Articles Congress had asked them to revise the Articles. So that’s what they sat down to do. But what came out of that was a new Constitution. They sent out that new Constitution in September of 1787 actually Constitution Day, September 17 and they set it up for ratification. These debates were occurring in each state and each state had to elect representatives that would then debate

1:26 over whether or not that state would adopt the Constitution. It’s into that atmosphere that The Federalist Papers are written. They’re written by three people but they all write under the name Publius. And that’s going to be important for today’s conversation because Publius as a single person has an argument that he is outlining in these different papers but he’s actually made up of James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay.

1:50 John Jay wrote the least. Alexander Hamilton wrote the most and so James Madison was right there in the center. But Madison and Hamilton by far contributed the most to the different Federalist Papers. So here’s our questions for today. We’re going to be looking at how the papers are structured. We’re also going to be looking at what this structure tells us about the design of the Constitution itself.

2:10 So the overall design of the papers is important because the whole thing was written as one project. They were published in New York and they were intended really for the New York Ratifying debates but really they knew they were going to have a national audience and that they would be read widely. It is here that the outline for the arguments around why the Constitution ought to exist in the way that it does were laid out by Publius.

2:31 So Publius writing in Federalist 1, and again, I have a video that is linked below. You can check it out if you want to know more about that introductory Federalist Paper. But he outlined six different elements that he’s going to cover in the following papers. He doesn’t say how many papers it’s going to take, but he says he’s going to cover these six things. The first is the utility of the union. In other words, why have a union of states in the first place?

2:53 Why don’t we branch off into 13 different states? That’s the first question he’s going to tackle. Next he’s going to say, well, now that I’ve proven how important that union is, I’m going to tell you why the current existing confederation government isn’t going to hold it up. So that’s going to be papers 15 to 22. Next, he’s going to look at the necessity of a government at least equally energetic with the one proposed to attain this object.

3:15 So in other words, he’s saying, look, we want to preserve the union, the current government can’t. We’re proposing a government that we think can. But the way he’s phrasing is saying that it’s got to be a government at least similar to the way that this is outlining where this union is going to fall apart. Next he’s going to go into the conforming, the proposed Constitution of the true principles of Republican government. So in other words, all right, so we have this government, it’s energetic.

3:37 Why is it going to conform to a Republican, smaller Republican kind of government? So how is that going to take place? Does it and he’s going to outline and argue for what it does and then he’s going to conclude with two. And he covers both of these really rapidly. In Federalist 85, you can see number 4 there is 37 to 84.

3:58 That’s the majority of the papers. There’s a lot of detail in there. We’ll get into that in just a minute. But it concludes these last two in five similarity to your state constitution and the additional security which this is going to afford to liberty and prosperity, those are both covered in 85. We’ll touch on that a little bit too. But I’m going to go through now in detail about what he covers in each one of these and why they are important to know

4:19 and sort of what this structure overall can tell us about the Constitution. So the first is the utility of the Union to your political prosperity. So I have three quotes on here, four quotes on here. Two from Federalist Nine, one from Federalist Two and one from Federalist. Federalist Two was written by John Jay. It often gets overlooked, but here Jay actually outlines why it is

4:40 that this union is so important because nothing is more certain than the indispensable necessity of government, though we need government. And it’s equally undeniable that whenever and however it is instituted, the people must see to it some of their natural rights in order to vest it with the required powers. It is well worth consideration, therefore, whether it would be conducive more to the interests of the people of America

5:01 that they should, to all general purposes, be one nation under one general government than they should divide themselves into separate confederacies. All right, so he’s outlining this argument for why a union is going to be important and sort of what that’s going to mean. That’s a Federalist too. They go on to build on this paper after paper and if you ever looked at the Federalist Papers you’ve often seen

5:22 that the same subject continue, the same subject continue. That’s often how these papers are titled, which is why we refer to the number because it’s a lot easier to keep it straight. But this is the subject here at the beginning, why are we having a union? There’s some great lines I pulled out from a couple of these papers. So a firm union will be of the utmost moment to the peace and liberty of the state as a barrier against domestic faction insurrection.

5:42 So in other words, the union is going to hold us together and ensure that we don’t get in arguments that are amongst each other, amongst the states to pull us apart. He also has this line the science of politics, however, like most scientists, has received great improvement. So this is really important. So there’s this argument about whether or not we’ve had this union, whether or not it’s covering too much territory.

6:03 The Anti-Federalists, those who are opposing Constitution, are bringing up all these arguments for why it is that this huge nation cannot be held together. One of them is that there’s just too many people representing the nation. There’s no way that a republic can be extended to that size. And what Publius arguing here is not only can it be extended that size, but it’s important that it is.

6:24 He says the science of politics has advanced and now allows us to have this larger republic than we’ve ever had in the past and that though this is new, it’s not novel in the sense that it’s a new invention. It’s new and how it is that we can maintain the powers of government to ensure that a republican government continues. This is his argument. And so when he says what we really need

6:44 to do is enlarge the orbit of interests that are going to allow us to maintain this government without it being overcome by factions or overcome by one singular interest that’s going to dominate all other interests that would overwhelm the country and so then deny liberty to a huge swath of the population.

7:05 And this is where the very famous line from Federalist 10 comes in which are quoted here liberty is the faction with errors to fire an ailment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less a folly to abolish liberty which is essential to political life because it nourishes faction than it would be to wish the annihilation of air which is essential to animal life because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.

7:29 So breaking that down, what he’s essentially saying is look, in a republic, in a democracy you are going to have voices and factions are going to compete with one another. Factions are going to arise out of that because we’re going to unify together. But with this new advance in the science of politics you now have so many different factions and interests that are vying for attention that it’s actually going to stabilize.

7:51 And so expanding what he says expanding the orbit, expanding the size of the government is actually going to allow for a more stable government that is rooted again in these republican principles. Meaning that we are directly voicing as the people, our consent to the laws are being made against us and these things are all going to play out in the national government. That he says is not only why the union is

8:12 important but why it’s critically important that it exists. You only have that maintenance over this huge area by having all of these different individuals and interests represented at the national level. So he’s established this idea that we need to enlarge the orbit in order to maintain stability in a republic because we need to have all of these interests represented because that’s fundamentally how we’re going to combat against faction.

8:35 Infection is one of the things that tears down a republican government. Government found on republican principles. So he says well is the current confederation capable of maintaining this union? The short answer is no. You can see here in 15 he says in the course of the preceding papers I have endeavored my fellow says this is the place before you in clear and convincing light the importance of union to your political safety

8:57 and happiness in pursuit of the plan which I’ve laid down. We know when he laid it down as federalist one. Next in order to be examined is the insufficiency of the present confederation to preserve the unit. So then he takes a deep dive into history and the paper that I’ve chord here he’s looking at the Greeks, he also looks at the Germans and he looks at the Dutch for different examples of confederations.

9:18 But here he’s looking at the Greek republics and he says very different nevertheless was the experiment from the theory the powers like those of the present congress were administered by deputies appointed wholly by the cities in their political capacities and exercised over them in the same capacity. Hence the weakness, the disorders and finally the destruction of the confederacy. So, what is he saying here?

9:38 If you look to the past you can see where these confederacies have joined together in this loose sort of gathering and the central government hasn’t been strong enough to really hold it together. So what happens? They fall apart because of infighting. You elect people who are jealously guarding the interests of a particular state or a particular city and not guarding the overall needs of the nation that a national government serve.

10:02 And so what happens? It falls apart. So in Papers 15 to 22, he extends this argument and essentially says, look weak. Central government is the real enemy you’re combating against when it comes to you being concerned about the preservation of the rights and liberties. So don’t be afraid of that. What we need to do is invest in a national government that is going to be strong enough to maintain itself.

10:26 And so in papers 23 through 26 through 36 excuse me, that’s when he dives into that argument. And here I’ve got a few other quotes, I’m not going to read all of them, but his idea is that you need to really organize an energetic government. When he’s talking about energetic government, he’s talking about the ability of the government to function and act in a way that’s going to be powerful

10:50 enough to ensure that the states are following along with whatever direction that the needs of the nation are taking it. He says the way though, because there is a concern, right? So we’ve talked about like, all right, so we need to have this union. The current confederation is not strong enough. We need to have a strong government, but that doesn’t mean that we want that government to be unlimited. So he’s being sensitive in these papers.

11:11 The idea that, look, we need to be cautious about giving energy, giving power to this government. The government should have certain things it should do and it needs the power to accomplish those things. But the control that you have over the government is by limiting those ends, by only giving the government certain responsibilities. If it exceeds those responsibilities, it’s already going outside of its powers.

11:32 But by limiting it to those ends, in theory that he’s arguing here, you would be able to limit the government from overreach and from taking away rights or certain privileges or things that the states have control over. So that limits your government by having those ends. Just saying, look, we need this energetic government. I’ve proven that by showing that the current confederation is going to fall apart, but sensitive to the fact

11:55 that we can’t make it too powerful, how do we limit that power? Limited ends. So we set limited ends. He goes on to say, ultimately this is the 31 quote here. Ultimately it’s the people that are going to need to control this. We have to trust the people to be the ones who are going to ensure that the government stays focused on these things. Otherwise it’s not going to work out. So just do a quick recap. How have we gotten here?

12:17 Well, we know we need a union. Pooley has sought to show why that union is so important. He’s saying that the current confederation cannot maintain that union. And now he’s saying, look, we need energy to ensure that that union stays in place. This new government is more energetic, but don’t worry, it is going to be limited in what its responsibilities are. And even though it’s more powerful,

12:39 it’s only going to be more powerful in certain things. And ultimately the check on that government to ensure that it stays in line or the people themselves spends the majority of the rest of the papers, 37 to 84 talking through, all right, what does this now mean for what kind of government this is? I’ve only pulled two quotes here could have pulled a bunch.

13:02 But he’s going through and he’s trying to set up the idea that we have this government needs to maintain itself. We have now this advancement in the science of politics. What is that going to mean? Well, we’ve enlarged the orbit, we’ve done all these things, but the government itself needs to now control itself. And so this is where you get this idea of auxiliary precautions or the structures

13:23 within the constitution that are going to help maintain itself. That’s going to come in the differentiation of powers between the national government and state governments, which he dives into quite a bit. And you can see him touching on that here in Federalist 39. It also has to do with the house of representatives, how that’s structured, how the senate is structured, how the executive branch is structured, and how the judiciary is structured.

13:46 And then he wraps up this piece by talking about just various different objections. And that’s really what he gets into. In federal city in particular, he takes on the idea of a bill of rights and whether or not the constitution needs to have a bill of rights. In the preceding papers, and I’ll just look quickly at these two here. Federalist 39. He’s outlining something really interesting saying that this constitution,

14:07 just to briefly touch on this, is that it’s neither national nor federal. It’s both, right? So this is the idea of federalism beginning to emerge. And then, of course, I have the long quote from federal 51. I’m not going to read it, but this is sort of talking about how all of these different parts and pieces fit together. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.

14:27 This is sort of the mechanical side of the constitution. How do we arrange these different parts and pieces so that they play off each other and keep things stable? And this is again, thinking about this is from a long study of human nature. So we studied human nature. He cited history. As we know in earlier passages, he was talking about the confederation. It’s not going to work out.

14:48 He was saying, look, all of these different things have come from the study of human nature. We know this is a way that these different powers are going to balance each other out and so maintain the scope of what it is that we’ve created. Then it goes on to conclude in federal, state five, a few different things. But he essentially says, remember,

15:09 he had those six points, and he finishes the final two here. And in the first two quotes here, I just think this is rather humorous. He essentially says, look, now if you look back at all of these 84 papers that I Publius have written, you can see, look, this new constitution looks like your state constitutions. Not only does it look like your state constitution, it looks like the best parts of your state constitution.

15:32 And when he says his final point was, how is this government going to ensure your liberty and prosperity? He’s saying that he basically summarizes the entire argument to the Federalist Paper. So if you want to see a shorter version of this, read the beginning of Federalist 85. And you’ll get sort of his bulleted list of how it goes through each of these points and how he says, look, it’s this entire construction that’s going

15:55 to guarantee for you this liberty and prosperity to you. Then it concludes with, I think, this wonderful quote that the establishment of a Constitution in time of profound peace, but a voluntary consent of a whole people is a prodigy to the completion of which I look forward with trembling anxiety saying, look, you’ve done an amazing thing

16:16 in getting this Constitution ratified because by the time 85 is published, the majority of the states had already ratified, or at least enough states had ratified the Constitution that it was already going to be legal. But he was concluding the series of essays. He says, look, this is a tremendous thing that we have now accomplished. So looking back again, how are they structured?

16:37 Well, we can see from the argument that they’re very clearly structured, talking about the nature of the union, why the confederation is not going to work out, why we need an energetic government in order to preserve this new national government, how it is that the Constitution is structured in order to preserve that energetic government without letting it go off the rails and get so large, where it’s going to be oppressive,

16:58 where they’re afraid that it’s going to be oppressive, and then also that it’s just like your state Constitutions and the entire structure is what is going to preserve the liberty that you are so jealous of guarding. And so what does this tell us about the design of the Constitution? Well, I think it tells us quite a few things. I think it tells us sort of overall

17:18 that the way that the Constitution is put together, it is structured very tightly and succinctly in order that it’s arranged towards having the right end, but that the idea was behind it, or what Publius was arguing before was this new Constitution would be enlarged

17:39 and have all of these interests that are competing with each other. Then it would give us a good opportunity to have individuals who are elected to office, who are serving on behalf of the nation. And then it would set up a system of government that would maintain itself so long as the people were keeping an eye on it, ensuring that it was staying within its rightful balance. So just to review one more time,

18:00 the utility union for your political prosperity, that was where we were talking about enlarge the orbit, increase the number of interests that are being voiced so that they’re playing off one another, and so that we have all this multiplicity, all of these numerous interests that are there and so that’s going to help maintain this system and actually preserve our liberty. The insufficiency of the current confederation.

18:20 Look to history and you’ll see that we confederations always collapse and so that’s not something that we’re going to want to do. What we need is something strong, the necessity. The government is equally as energetic as the one that’s put forward. You have to have just ends and adequate needs. So you need ends that are clear but limited and the means to then accomplish those tasks you can forward to the proposed

18:42 Constitution, to the Republican government. We have to balance between state and national governments and we have to balance the powers in the government that’s our auxiliary precautions are going to help us maintain that system of government and it’s going to enable the government to control the governed and the next place control itself. This is part of that quote in Federalist 51 the idea being you need a government that’s going to create stable society or

19:03 to help society maintain stability is the way to phrase that. And that government then needs to control itself because it’s a part of that society. It’s not separate from it. So you got to control the people in a way that is just. But you also have to allow for the people to control the government and for the government itself to have mechanisms within it. These are things like separation of powers.

19:24 They’re going to ensure that government controls itself. How is it similar to your state constitution? It’s similar to the best part of your state constitution. That one again, kind of humorously brushes off. And how does this all work together? All these papers have shown why this is going to work out and why this is important. All right, that was a whirlwind tour. We’ll have a few links that can help sort of stage the different parts of this.

19:45 So if you want to go through this video even faster, we’ll have that outlined for you. But I hope you’ve enjoyed it. I hope it’s been useful. If you’re looking to brush up on the Federalist Papers or this is your first introduction to them, I hope it gives you a chance to go back and read more in depth on the different papers. We’re going to be having a series of videos that looks at the papers in more depth in specific ones. Some of the big ones, like 10, 51 I’ve already done and Federalist 1 I mentioned.

20:07 But we’re also going to be looking at 62 and 78 and a few of the others that just have a lot of really interesting parts and pieces that reveal even more about the structure of our Constitution. So I hope you’ll stick around for that. We also have lots of other shows on our channel. We look at different images and different primary sources from throughout American history. On our Bridge from the Past series, we also have conversations with brilliant scholars from a variety of different

20:28 fields on our Scholar Talk series, so I hope you’ll check both of those out. And if you’re just looking for some more casual history viewing, we have a podcast called Fabric of History that’s also really interesting. We hope you’ll check it out, but until next time, thanks. Feel free to comment, please like subscribe, and we’ll see you in the next one.