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¶ … Federalist Papers are important to any analysis of the U.S. Constitution because they provided the philosophical and socio-political justification for the adoption of the Constitution. Prior to the ratification of the Constitution, the states were loosely united under the Articles of Confederation. However, Alexander Hamilton and his group of elites did not like that they could not be part of a federal/central government that oversaw and wielded power over the rest of the states. Thus, Hamilton penned many of the Federalist Papers (including Federalist no. 1) in order to combat the ideas expressed by the Anti-Federalists who condemned the Constitution as an attempt to subjugate states' rights.
The Federalist Papers may be read therefore as a series of a letters and arguments meant to sway the reader as to why the U.S. should adopt the Constitution in place of the Articles of Confederation. It is a body of writing that is centralist in perspective and geared towards illustrating how a Constitution would better help the states to avoid the pitfalls of a union that lacks a central government with considerable power.
In other words, the Federalist Papers were about aligning the public's view with that of the Constitutionalists, who aimed to give the individual states a central government that could have the same kind of authority that the...
It was a return of the old power in a new form, justified by the rhetoric of Hamilton et al., and opposed by the Anti-Federalists, who believed that the only thing that could keep the country from becoming a totalitarian, authoritarian, tyrannical State was for the individual states to maintain their own authority, their own autonomy, their own governments, their own state constitutions, and their own individual identities. The Federalist Papers argued that if the states were not united under a federal government, they would all fight among themselves, get involved in foreign wars, and cause no end of headaches for the people. Obviously, the Federalists were myopic in their assessment.
Nonetheless, the Federalist Papers are important to any analysis of the U.S. Constitution because they provide the perspective and framework from which the Constitution was projected onto the public as a good thing. What the Constitution was supposed to have meant and how it was supposed to be interpreted (positively -- as it is the victors who write the history books) could all be found in the Federalist Papers, as they provided the keys to accessing the Constitution.
Of course, one could just as easily turn to the Anti-Federalist Papers in order to understand why the Constitution was a bad thing --…
Federalist What is a faction? Where in modern American politics do we see factions? How does Madison propose to quell the impact of factions in government? In Federalist 10, James Madison discussed the types of factions, parties and interest groups that result from differences in wealth and property, as well as differences of opinion in religion, politics or ideology. He thought that differences in wealth and rank, at least those not
In addition it was agreed that issues of federal budget, revenue and taxation would originate with the House of Representatives. The Great Compromise issued in a spirit of success to the convention and essentially ended the division between the small and large states. However, it did nothing to alleviate the pending debate between the Federalist and the Anti-Federalist. Decisions on how much power to give to the people and to
Federalists & Anti-Federalists Federalists vs. Anti-Federalists The contextual framework of the historic debate between federalists and anti-federalists involved major institutional expansion and reform as well as the political sphere. Although both groups of leaders embraced popular accountability as the standard of government legitimacy, their respective approaches differed quite significantly; reflecting different perspectives on the perils of citizen participation, concentrated power, and the need for effective and energetic government (Borowiak, 2007). The leaders of
Constitution Debates During the intellectual debate over the Constitution, the Anti-Federalist case against the Federalists' proposed system of checks and balances was made in a number of different ways. It is worth understanding the logic of the Anti-Federalists' arguments before we turn to the Federalist response to those arguments. A first case made against checks and balances is an obvious one: that it diminishes direct accountability to the people on the part
Federalist Papers Written more than two hundred years ago, Alexander Hamilton's, John Jay's and James Madison's Federalist Papers remain completely relevant in describing American political philosophy and clarifying the country's political history. The Federalist Papers outline some of the main causes for the creation of a new nation based on fundamental rights, freedoms, and personal liberties. As their title suggests, the papers set forth an argument in favor of a strong
Efforts were made to check the power of the majority as well as the minority, for to achieve justice not simply in the perfection of the individual soul but to create a functioning and just government that has effective checks and balances that stymie the pursuit of happiness of its citizens, "is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its