But the media-savvy Hamilton also desired a wider geographic distribution of the Federalist essays.

Newspapers were 18 th century America’s best medium for communicating time-sensitive information to a target audience. But the Federalist authors’ choice was deliberate, referencing Publius Valerius Publicola, founder of the Roman Republic. Writing anonymously was standard practice in the 18 th century, especially for newspapers and magazines, and pen names drawn from classical history were fashionable. All three authors published their essays under the pseudonym Publius. Hamilton and Madison wrote the remainder of the series, which eventually numbered 85 essays.

Jay wrote numbers 2-5 but then fell ill and was unable to contribute any more. Hamilton also recruited two collaborators for his ambitious undertaking: fellow New-Yorker John Jay, and Virginian James Madison. To the people of the state of New-York.” Hamilton exerted his influence to have the series reprinted by three of the other four New York papers. It was relegated to a column on page 2 (page 1 was reserved for paid advertisements, mostly for newly imported goods like tobacco, Tenerife wines, and fur “muffs and tippets”) and titled “The Federalist.

Hamilton’s first installment appeared in the New York Independent Journal newspaper on October 27, 1787. From ZSR Library’s copy of the 1788 first edition. Alexander Hamilton set out his proposal for the Federalist series in his first number. Hamilton’s own state of New York was home to some of the most intense opposition, so he fell back on a strategy that had worked for him in the past: he took up his pen and faced his opponents with a barrage of words. Hamilton and other supporters of the Constitution (known as federalists in the political parlance of the time) realized that a failure to ratify would be a disastrous setback for the fragile new union of former colonies. Opposition to the new Constitution was immediate and fierce, and it was by no means certain that the document would be ratified by the minimum nine states necessary for it to take effect. But after four months of contentious debate in Philadelphia, the delegates presented to the American public a Constitution that proposed a much stronger federal government than many citizens had expected. The recently concluded Constitutional Convention had been charged with revising the Articles of Confederation to provide a framework for the government of the newly independent United States. In the fall of 1787 Alexander Hamilton was facing a crisis.

An early printing of the new Constitution appended to the second volume of ZSR’s copy of The Federalist.

The federalist alexander hamilton