"FEDERALIST PAPERS".   Term Paper ID:25490 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Examines collection of essays by Hamilton, Madison & John Jay, their aims & impact on creation of U.S. Constitution; compares Papers to ideas of historian Edward Gibbon.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Examines collection of essays by Hamilton, Madison & John Jay, their aims & impact on creation of U.S. Constitution; compares Papers to ideas of historian Edward Gibbon. Paper Introduction: The collection of 85 essays known collectively as the Federalist Papers, or simply as The Federalist, stand as the chief exposition of the American Constitution and the system of government which it prescribed. The 1787 convention in Philadelphis, which produced the Constitution itself, published and preserved no official record of its deliberations. While several members later gave partial and personal accounts of the proceedings, none of these has obtained the weight of the Federalist Papers. Written variously by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison under the common pseudonym of Publius, these were originally published as newspaper pieces. The immediate objective was to encourage the adoption of the new Constitution in the place of the nation's original written constitution, the Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. representatives whoseenlightened views and virtuous sentiments render themsuperior to local prejudices and to schemes of injustice ... [xvi]Federalist 63, 411. These examples, though as unfit for theimitation, as they are repugnant to the genius, of America, arenotwithstanding, when compared to the fugitive and turbulent existence ofother ancient republics, very instructive proofs of the necessity ofsome institution that will blend stability with liberty.[xvii] The Senate is clearly analogous to the House of Lords; indeed, thecomparison is made explicit a few pages further on.[xviii] The Senate isnot precisely Gibbon's "martial nobility." The idea of even a lifetimeSenate, still less a hereditary one, is "repugnant to the genius ofAmerica." But the function of both was similar in acting as a stabilizingmakeweight against the impulsive turbulence of popular assemblies and ofmonarchs alike. [vi]Ibid., 3. The interest of the man must beconnected with the constitutional rights of the place.[xx] This is the famous "separation of powers" in American constitutionalscheme.[xxi] It again bears close comparison with the ideas expressed inGibbon's general critique of the Roman imperial constitution, where theabsence of effective alternative power centers, nobles and commons"collected into constitutional assemblies," allowed the Roman Empire todrift steadily into despotism. [viii]Ibid., 3-5. Applied Bayesian andClassical Inference: The Case of the Federalist Papers. Gibbon's analysis may be compared to the role of the Senate in theAmerican Constitution, as characterized by the Federalist Papers. [xviii]Ibid., 415. [x]Ibid., 54. Written variously by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madisonunder the common pseudonym of Publius, these were originally published asnewspaper pieces.[i] The immediate objective was to encourage the adoptionof the new Constitution in the place of the nation's original writtenconstitution, the Articles of Confederation. [xix]Gibbon, 25 . Endnotes BibliographyEpstein, David F. For defenders of theConstitution, it accords with the prevailing liberal tenor of modernWestern thought; for critics, it lends itself to the view that theConstitution was an instrument for securing the interests of an economicelite.[viii] The Federalist Papers are for example quite critical ofdemocracy. [xx]Federalist 51, p. They were not blind to thepower of ambition, but held that the counterweighting of powers in theirproposed system could harness ambition and turn it to constructive ends,not least the balancing of others' ambitions. Toward that end,the remainder of this essay will consider the ideas of the FederalistPapers in comparison to those of a contemporary thinker, the historianEdward Gibbon. But modern writers have identified a philosophical tension inthem, between two conceptions of what a "free government" means. The same freedoms that safeguarded private life andinterests also opened the way to participation in public life as thehighest of callings, one that the authors of the Federalist Papersresponded to in their own lives. In the sameperiod of time, France has had five republics, two monarchies, and twoempires. The great security against a gradual concentration of the severalpowers in the same department, consists in giving to those whoadminister each department the necessary constitutional means andpersonal motives to resist encroachments of the others ... London:University of Chicago, 1984.Gibbon, Edward. The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. But, unless public liberty is protectedby intrepid and vigilant guardians, the authority of so formidable amagistrate will soon degenerate into despotism .... Wallace, Applied Bayesian andClassical Inference: The Case of the Federalist Papers (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1984), 2-4. It was in fact the fear of despotism that the authors of theFederalist Papers were chiefly concerned to allay, because the Constitutionprescribed a far stronger central government than that embodied in theArticles of Confederation. New York:Springer-Verlag, 1984.----------------------- [i]David F. The Political Theory of The Federalist. What Gibbon, orHamilton, Jay, and Madison, might make of the "ministerial dictatorship"latent in the modern British constitution, in which the old division ofpowers has largely vanishe, or of the "divided government" and paralysisthat so often characterizes the modern American constitutional system, isopen to endless speculation. The Constitution itself hassurvived as the basis of American government, with only one seriousbreakdown, the American Civil War, after which with some amendmentsregarding slavery and civil rights the system was restored. However, the authors plainlyhad in view a longer-term goal as well, to explain and justify the systemof government embodied in the Constitution. As in the above quotation, Greek and especially Athenianhistory, with its demagogues and conspiracies, were what they plainly hadin mind. 337. [iv]Frederick Mosteller and David L. thegreater security afforded by a greater variety of parties,against the event of any one party being able to outnumber anoppress the rest.[xii] Moreover, if the writers of the Federalist Papers were critical ofdemocracy, they were on the other hand emphatic in calling for a governmentrooted ultimately in popular consent expressed through elections, at a timewhen this was a radical position.[xiii] Indeed, as men of their time,their thought should perhaps be viewed in that context. By implication hethus set forth a political philosophy, one rooted broadly in the sameexperience, that of classical antiquity, from which the authors of theFederalist Papers drew their own examples. A larger polity, however, would have greater diversity, an "extendedsphere,"[xi] rendering it less likely that either particular interests orpassions, or personal ambitions, would fracture the whole community. [vii]Ibid., 4. republicanism.[v] The former looks back to Montesquieu and particularlyto Locke; the latter has older roots going back to classical antiquity.As characterized by one modern writer, "liberal thought treats governmentas a device by which individual men can protect their own life, liberty,and property."[vi] In contrast, the republican "tradition emphasizes man'spolitical nature and his capacity for attaining a 'civic virtue' in whichhis own personality is fulfilled in his patriotic contribution to thecommon good."[vii] Of these, the liberal interpretation has had more currency in 2 thcentury writing on the Federalist Papers. How effective are the Federalist Papers in meeting these objectives?On one level that is answered by events. The Federalist.New York: Modern Library, no date.Mosteller, Frederick; and Wallace, David L. What emerges from the comparison of the Federalist Papers withGibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is their strikingly similarconceptions of what liberty means, how it is threatened and how it can beinstitutionally protected, and how republican institutions channeledambition into constructive rather than destructive roles. [ix]Federalist 1 , 58. That their political visions were similar,however, emerges repeatedly from a comparative reading of their works. Broadly,the tension is suggested to lie between essentially private and publicconceptions of freedom, or in the terms of often used, between liberalismv. They were intended to make the case thatthe Constitution would establish, and support the preservation, of a freegovernment. [xv]Ibid., 253. It clearly appears, that the same advantage which a republic hasover a democracy, in controlling the effects of faction, is enjoyed bya large republic over a small republic--is enjoyed by the Unionover the States composing it ... If Gibbon's ideal monarchy is a restrained and tempered one, havingrepublican elements in its constitution, in other places he evidentlyconsiders a republic superior to even a constitutional monarchy. Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence andcontention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security orthe rights of property; and have in general been as short in their livesas they have been violent in their deaths.[ix] By "democracy," however, the authors of the Federalist Papers meantonly a direct democracy, necessarily confined to a small community thatcould assemble en masse. Ambition mustbe made to counteract ambition. A martial nobilityand stubborn commons, possessed of arms, tenacious of property, andcollected into constitutional assemblies, form the only balance capableof preserving a free constitution against enterprises of an aspiringprince.[xiv] The model of a free constitution that Gibbon has in mind is plainlythe British constitution in its 18th century form, with the power of theCrown counterbalanced by the two houses of Parliament, the martial nobilityof the Lords and a famously stubborn Commons. Their argument was that a strong centralgovernment did not imply a despotic one, because the central authoritywould itself be republican in form, with its powers internally subdividedand counterbalanced, while the sheer scale of the federal system wouldprotect it against the internal revolutions, with despotic outcomes, thatcharacterized direct democracies and small republics. Inparticular, a republic encouraged talented and ambitious individuals toplay a positive role in public life, a trait attenuated in a monarchy anddwindling to nothing under despotism: "the distinctions of personal meritand influence, so conspicuous in a republic, so feeble and obscure under amonarchy, were abolished by the despotism of the emperors.[xix] The authors of the Federalist Papers likewise believed that arepublican system had some inherent tendency to bring "the distinctions ofpersonal merit and influence" to the fore. He early oncharacterizes the defects of its overall constitution. The obvious definition of a monarchy seems to be that of a statein which a single person, by whatsoever name he may be distinguished, isintrusted with the execution of the laws, the management of the revenue,and the command of the army. Abridgment byD.M. In another place, characterizing the increasingly despotic late Romansystem, he notes that "a body of nobles, whose influence may restrain whileit secures the authority of the monarch, would have been very inconsistantwith the character and policy of Constantine."[xv] A House of Lords, heimplies, not only restrained but confirmed, i.e. The collection of 85 essays known collectively as the FederalistPapers, or simply as The Federalist, stand as the chief exposition of theAmerican Constitution and the system of government which it prescribed.The 1787 convention in Philadelphis, which produced the Constitutionitself, published and preserved no official record of its deliberations.While several members later gave partial and personal accounts of theproceedings, none of these has obtained the weight of the FederalistPapers. [xvii]Ibid. Low. [xii]Ibid., 61. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 196 .Hamilton, Alexander; Jay, John; and Madison, James. Members of thefirst two were selected for life, while regarding that of Carthage, It is at least certain that it had some quality or other whichrendered it an anchor against popular fluctuations; and that a smallercouncel, drawn out of the senate, was appointed not only for life, butfilled up vacancies itself. In any society, community, they argued, factional divisionswould arise from economic interest or other "passions" such as religion.[x] In a small community these divisions would be stark, and becomingintermingled with personal quarrels and ambitions they would bedestabilizing. Epstein, The Political Theory of The Federalist (London:University of Chicago, 1984), 1. What Gibbon particularly disapproved of, as emerges constantly in hiswork, is despotism. He does not define despotism as such, but what ismeant arises clearly enough from his account of various emperors' excessesand misdeeds, as "incompatible with personal security or the rights ofproperty" as the direct democracy criticized in the Federalist Papers.Despotism arose in his view from the unbalanced concentration of power, afailing which progressively overtook the Roman Empire. [iii]Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison, TheFederalist (New York: Modern Library, no date), 63, 423-24. [xxi]Epstein, 127. [v]Epstein, 3ff. Gibbon was not a political philospher as such, but in The Decline andFall of the Roman Empire he had much to say about political institutionsand their consequences for the society ruled by them. [xiii]Epstein, 5. [xiv]Gibbon, 32. [xi]Epstein, 99. [ii]Ibid., 3. reinforced a monarchy, theformer by serving as a counterweight, but--importantly--the latter, aswell, by placing the government as a whole on a broader foundation andproviding a permanent institutional component of government, separate fromthe comings and passings of individual monarchs. Thiswas an advantage of a republic, assumed to be a larger community, over adirect democracy, and a particular advantage of the proposed federalsystem, which would bind the then-semiautonomous American states into onepolitical community. That their thought embodied a contradiction between liberal andrepublican conceptions of liberty, that is between private and publicconceptions of freedom, is a position they surely would have rejected.They might well acknowledge a tension between the two, but argue that itwas a creative tension, as were the tensions built into the republicanseparation of powers. Their critique was largely rooted in the effectsof small size. "Historyinforms us of no long-lived republic which had not a senate."[xvi] Theexamples given are those of Rome, Sparta, and Carthage. But are they consistantand coherent in their arguments? The Federalist Papers, effective at the time in persuading publicopinion in favor of the Constitution, retain an authoritative standing.[ii] They are not only key documents in the history of American politicalthought, but are regularly consulted and cited in American public debate.Very recently, for example, a few sentences dealing with impeachment inFederalist 63 became the subject of exegesis and argument.[iii] (Theauthorship of most of the articles is not in dispute, but that of someis.[iv] Since individual authorship is not central to this discussion,citations are by number and page, not author's name.) Clearly the Federalist Papers are an able presentation of their case,or they would not have retained such high esteem. 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