Three Men Wrote 85 Newspaper Essays in Eight Months

On October 27, 1787, the New York Independent Journal printed an essay signed Publius. The author argued that the proposed federal Constitution, drafted in Philadelphia weeks earlier, deserved ratification. Over the next eight months, Publius would publish 84 more essays in New York papers, building a sustained case for the document.

Publius was three men: Alexander Hamilton, who organized the project and wrote 51 of the essays; James Madison, who wrote 29; and John Jay, who managed five before falling ill. The essays appeared at a punishing pace — sometimes four a week — and were quickly bundled into a two-volume book that circulated outside New York as well.

The goal was concrete and local. New York's ratifying convention was likely to reject the Constitution; Governor George Clinton opposed it. Publius needed to flip enough delegates to clear a majority. Whether the essays moved many votes is debated. The state ratified in July 1788 by a margin of 30 to 27, and only after Virginia and New Hampshire had already pushed the count past the nine-state threshold needed to make the document binding.

The essays' afterlife dwarfs their original purpose. The U.S. Supreme Court has cited them more than 300 times, treating them as evidence of what the Constitution's framers actually intended. Federalist No. 10, on factions, and No. 51, on checks and balances, are now standard reading in political theory courses. A pamphlet campaign aimed at one state legislature became, by accident, the canonical commentary on a system of government.