tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">FEDERALIST No. 61. The Same Subject Continued (Concerning the Power of Congress to Regulate the Election of Members)

FEDERALIST No. 62. The Senate

FEDERALIST No. 63. The Senate Continued

FEDERALIST No. 64. The Powers of the Senate

FEDERALIST No. 65. The Powers of the Senate Continued

FEDERALIST No. 66. Objections to the Power of the Senate To Set as a Court for Impeachments Further Considered.

FEDERALIST No. 67. The Executive Department

FEDERALIST No. 68. The Mode of Electing the President

FEDERALIST No. 69. The Real Character of the Executive

FEDERALIST No. 70. The Executive Department Further Considered

FEDERALIST No. 71. The Duration in Office of the Executive

FEDERALIST No. 72. The Same Subject Continued, and Re-Eligibility of the Executive Considered.

FEDERALIST No. 73. The Provision For The Support of the Executive, and the Veto Power

FEDERALIST No. 74. The Command of the Military and Naval Forces, and the Pardoning Power of the Executive.

FEDERALIST No. 75. The Treaty-Making Power of the Executive

FEDERALIST No. 76. The Appointing Power of the Executive

FEDERALIST No. 77. The Appointing Power Continued and Other Powers of the Executive Considered.

FEDERALIST No. 78. The Judiciary Department

FEDERALIST No. 79. The Judiciary Continued

FEDERALIST No. 80. The Powers of the Judiciary

FEDERALIST No. 81. The Judiciary Continued, and the Distribution of the Judicial Authority.

FEDERALIST No. 82. The Judiciary Continued.

FEDERALIST No. 83. The Judiciary Continued in Relation to Trial by Jury

FEDERALIST No. 84. Certain General and Miscellaneous Objections to the Constitution Considered and Answered.

FEDERALIST No. 85. Concluding Remarks

FEDERALIST No. 1. General Introduction

For the Independent Journal. Saturday, October 27, 1787

HAMILTON

To the People of the State of New York:

AFTER an unequivocal experience of the inefficacy of the subsisting federal government, you are called upon to deliberate on a new Constitution for the United States of America. The subject speaks its own importance; comprehending in its consequences nothing less than the existence of the UNION, the safety and welfare of the parts of which it is composed, the fate of an empire in many respects the most interesting in the world. It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force. If there be any truth in the remark, the crisis at which we are arrived may with propriety be regarded as the era in which that decision is to be made; and a wrong election of the part we shall act may, in this view, deserve to be considered as the general misfortune of mankind.

This idea will add the inducements of philanthropy to those of patriotism, to heighten the solicitude which all considerate and good men must feel for the event. Happy will it be if our choice should be directed by a judicious estimate of our true interests, unperplexed and unbiased by considerations not connected with the public good. But this is a thing more ardently to be wished than seriously to be expected. The plan offered to our deliberations affects too many particular interests, innovates upon too many local institutions, not to involve in its discussion a variety of objects foreign to its merits, and of views, passions and prejudices little favorable to the discovery of truth.

Among the most formidable of the obstacles which the new Constitution will have to encounter may readily be distinguished the obvious interest of a certain class of men in every State