The Federalist No. 1, Rare Early Printing in The Pennsylvania Journal

The Federalist Papers, a series of 85 essays by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison, were published between October 1787 and May 1788 under the pen name “Publius,” urging New Yorkers to ratify the proposed Constitution.

This fundamental essay, written by Alexander Hamilton, was published just eleven days after the first newspaper printing—on October 27, 1787, in The New York Packet and The Independent Journal. It provides an outline for the rest of the essays, arguing for the inadequacy of the Articles of Confederation and the necessity of checks and balances that would allow the new government to be sufficiently strong without endangering the liberty of the people. Subsequent numbers were published in these two newspapers. The Federalist Papers were published in book form in 1788.

“[I]t seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, to decide by their conduct and example, the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not, of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are for ever destined to depend, for their political constitutions, on accident and force.... the noble enthusiasm of liberty is too apt to be infected with a spirit of narrow and illiberal distrust....”

“[I]t will be equally forgotten...that a dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people, than under the forbidden appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government. History will teach us, that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism, than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing Demagogues and ending Tyrants.”

★ Alexander Hamilton. “Publius,” Federalist Paper No. 1, “To the People of the State of New York,” The Pennsylvania Journal, and the Weekly Advertiser, November 7, 1787. Philadelphia, PA: Thomas Bradford. 4 pp., 10 x 15¾ in. #27488