“The Federalist: A Commentary on the Constitution of the United States (Modern Library Classics)”, by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison, edited by Robert Scigliano

688 pages, Modern Library, ISBN-13: 978-0679603252

Not too many years after the United States won their independence from Great Britain, it was generally acknowledged that the Articles of Confederation were an inadequate way in which to run a nation, and so in Philadelphia a Constitutional Convention took place from May 25^th to September 17^th, 1787, that included several of the Founding Fathers which proposed a new form of government for the young nation. Months later, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay published a series of essays, collectively called the Federalist Papers, hoping to influence public opinion toward ratification of the Constitution. In these 85 essays, they listed some of the problems that the new nation was facing due to the lack of an adequate central government. The authors set forth the military and economic advantages that they thought ratification of the Constitution would bring about and also asserted that the document would promote domestic tranquility through a stronger union.

This edition was edited by Robert Scigliano of Boston College. He provides an article on the debate about authorship with his own views on the subject and a note on the various source texts and why this edition incorporates “the McLean, the Gideon, and at least most of the Hopkins revisions”. While this text is different in some small ways from many traditional texts, I believe that in this version the thought and argument of each article is clearer and quite readable. The Federalist Papers is a very important collection for understanding the debate surrounding the Constitution, considering the importance of Hamilton, Madison and Jay in creating the thing to begin with. Because of what they address they also give us a strong insight into the opposing views of the time and alternative views that had some impact on the final form of our most fundamental document. However, it is important to not see these articles as somehow more authoritative than they are: while they certainly help us see into the thinking of those on one side of the debate, it is also clear that not everyone agreed with these views (not even all those who eventually signed the Constitution). Still, it is not possible to consider oneself sufficiently informed about our Constitution without reading the Federalist Papers.