The Federalist Editorial Note
The Federalist
The Great Collaboration
To refute the numerous articles critical of the Constitution that New York newspapers were carrying in late September and early October 1787,1 The Federalist essays written under the pseudonym “Publius” were quickly launched. Although Hamilton is usually credited with conceiving the idea of The Federalist, there is no concrete evidence whether Jay or Hamilton initiated the plan. James Madison reported that both Jay and Hamilton recruited him to participate. William Duer was also recruited at this time, but his pieces were not used in the series and were published separately under the pseudonym “Philo-Publius.” Madison, Hamilton, and Duer were all among the guests at dinner at Jay’s home on 22 October 1787, but whether this occasion related to the establishment of the series is not recorded. Gouverneur Morris, though “warmly pressed,” declined an invitation to participate.2
Turning out copy at breakneck pace, Hamilton published the introductory essay, The Federalist No. 1, on 27 October, while Jay had his initial letter, No. 2, published in the New York Independent Journal on 31 October, No. 3 on 3 November, No. 4 on 7 November, and the fifth letter three days later. It was fortunate for both content and continuity that Madison had agreed to participate by November, for between 10 November, when the fifth Federalist letter appeared, and some weeks prior to 5 March 1788, the date of publication of The Federalist 64, Jay’s next and last contribution to the series, Jay suffered a serious bout of rheumatoid arthritis or a similar ailment; not until 11 February 1788 did Jay report that his health was “pretty well reestablished.” In the interim Hamilton and Madison took up the slack, with a total of 50 essays attributed to Hamilton and 26 to Madison, or Madison in collaboration with Hamilton ( 19: 140). Coming as they did at the beginning of the series, Jay’s letters, though few, were among those most widely published in the newspapers, and set a positive, optimistic, and conciliatory tone for the series.3
Soon after the collaborators had completed their contributions, Madison sent a ciphered dispatch to Jefferson, naming Jay, Hamilton, and himself as the authors of The Federalist and adding some illuminating details: “The proposal came from the two former. The execution was thrown by the sickness of Jay mostly on the two others. Though carried on in concert the writers are not mutually answerable for all the ideas of each other, there being seldom time for even a perusal of the pieces by any but the writer before they were wanted at the press and some times hardly by the writer himself.”4
John Jay and the Doctors’ Riot
Jay’s recovery was seriously jeopardized by the mishap that befell him as a participant in the Doctors’ Riot. The riot started on Sunday, 13 April, when medical students exposed bones of bodies dissected at the New York Hospital. When a responding mob found dismembered corpses inside the building, it confirmed long-circulating rumors of grave-robbing, and in the ensuing riot physicians and students from the hospital were taken into custody and placed for their own protection in the city jail. Governor George Clinton and Mayor James Duane then sought with little success to restrain the mob from attacking the jail. By the following afternoon, with the jail still under siege, Matthew Clarkson and Jay and other “gentlemen,” armed with their swords, marched toward the jail with some fifty militiamen. Jay was struck in the forehead with a stone, and others, including Baron von Steuben, similarly wounded. Unconscious and bleeding, Jay, as his wife’s letter to her mother of 17 April 1788, below, discloses, was carried home for emergency medical attention. Not until the militia fired on the mob was it finally dispersed.5 For a time it was feared that Jay had suffered permanent brain damage. Several newspapers even circulated a report that the “wounds received by the Honorable Mr. JAY, in the late disturbances at New-York, … are like to prove mortal.” Fortunately, before this incident Jay had completed his Address to the People of the State of New-York, a pamphlet that many have ranked above The Federalist letters among the most notable contributions of the pro-Constitution camp to the ratification movement.6
The Matter of Authorship
Of the eighty-five The Federalist letters, all published under the pseudonym “Publius” (the name taken from Publius Valerius Publicola, a founder and defender of the Roman republic), only five drafts, all in Jay’s hand, have been found. The authors meant to keep the identity of “Publius” a well-guarded secret to avoid prejudicing readers who might be persuaded by arguments if they were not put off by the names of the conspicuous Federalists who were the authors. Madison revealed his role and the names of his collaborators in private correspondence,7 but in New York, though many attributed the essays to Hamilton, few knew for certain of his involvement.8 Jay’s connection was even a deeper secret. Indeed, the fact that he was forced to deny a widely published Antifederalist report that he opposed the Constitution suggests that among Antifederalists his authorship of some of The Federalist essays was not even suspected.
The rumor about Jay’s opposition to the Constitution first surfaced on 24 November 1787, when Philadelphia’s Independent Gazetteer reported an unnamed source as relating that “his Excellency John Jay, (a gentleman of the first rate abilities, joined to a good heart) who at first was carried away with the new plan of government, is now very decidedly against it, and says it is as deep and wicked a conspiracy as has been ever invented in the darkest ages against the liberties of a free people.” The report was quickly reprinted in newspapers across the Eastern seaboard.9 Jay’s friends stamped the story as a hoax. As Washington put it, “It is very unlikely therefore that a man of his knowledge and foresight should turn on both sides of a question in so short a space. I am anxious however to know the foundation (if any) for this.” Washington rightly suspected that “the enemies of the Constitution leave no stone unturned to encrease the opposition to it.”10 In reply, Madison branded the report an “arrant forgery,” and warned the General that “tricks of this sort are not unknown with the Enemies of the Constitution.”11
Jay himself was quickly alerted by John Vaughan. Tench Coxe also sent a copy of the newspaper to David S. Franks, requesting him to show it to Jay. Jay quickly authorized publication of his denial.12 The rumor was subsequently listed by “One of the People” in his refutation of “Antifederal Arguments,” appearing in the Maryland Journal (Baltimore), 25 December 1787, wherein this and other “deceptions” were exposed.13
Whatever confusion of attribution survived publication of The Federalist was compounded by the desire of both Hamilton and Madison at different periods of their lives to set the record straight and claim the credit for their respective contributions. In Jay’s case it was left for his family to do so. It is known that John Jay II once had possession of all five of his grandfather’s drafts,14 but as of September 1891, when the third volume of Jay’s Correspondence and Public Papers appeared, its editor noted that the (recently relocated) original draft of No. 2 could not be found.15 Jay’s authorship of these letters has never been seriously disputed. Some confusion, however, arose about No. 64.
Numerous lists identifying the authorship of the individual Federalist essays have been attributed to both Hamilton and Madison, but none to Jay. Perhaps the most authentic Hamilton list is found on the inside cover of Chancellor James Kent’s copy of The Federalist (first edition, 1788), now in possession of Columbia University Library. Kent wrote: “I am assured that Numbers 2. 3. 4. & 54 were written by John Jay,” but the number “6” was superimposed over the “5” in “54” in Hamilton’s handwriting.16 Kent appended this notation to the list: “N.B. I showed the above Mem. to General Hamilton in my office in Albany & he said it was correct saving the correction above made.” Beneath this notation Kent wrote: “I have no doubt Mr. Jay wrote No. 64 on the Treaty Power—He made a Speech on that Subject in the NY Convention, & I am told he says he wrote it. I suspect therefore from internal Ev[idence] the above to be the correct List, & not the one on the opposite page.”17
When the historian-editor Henry B. Dawson was at work on his edition of The Federalist, published in 1864, he asked John Jay II to see any related family documents. When Jay’s grandson located drafts of No. 64 among copies of the original newspaper printings in the family’s possession, he forwarded the original manuscripts to George H. Moore of New-York Historical Society for Dawson’s perusal, “just in time to settle the disputed question of the authorship of that paper.”18
Although the drafts arrived too late for use in his edition, Dawson published a draft of The Federalist 64 separately.19 John Jay II subsequently became involved in polemical disputes with Dawson over his depiction of John Jay and the Constitution in his introduction to his edition of The Federalist. Instead of returning the original manuscripts to John Jay II as requested,20 Dawson left the documents at the New-York Historical Society, where its presence was unknown until 1959, when Dr. Catharine S. Crary, a member of the staff of the original Papers of John Jay project, uncovered a draft of The Federalist 64 in a box of Jay’s letters. One additional page belonging to the second draft was found at that time.
Only one Federalist draft, that of No. 5, remained in the possession of the Jay family when the Jay Papers were acquired by Columbia University in 1959. The circumstances by which Nos. 3 and 4 were acquired by private owners have never been clarified.
The Texts of Jay’s Federalist Letters
Jay’s letters Nos. 2 through 5 first appeared in the Independent Journal, or The General Advertiser, a semi-weekly paper edited by John M’Lean and Co., and a day or two later in both the New-York Packet (edited by Samuel and John Loudon) and the Daily Advertiser, edited by Francis Childs; as indicated in the source notes to those texts, all were widely reprinted. No. 64 first appeared in the Independent Journal of 5 March 1788, followed on 7 March with publication in the New-York Packet. In its original newspaper version it bore the number “63,” but was renumbered in the first collected edition.21 Jay’s essays Nos. 2 through 5 appear in that first edition, printed by J. and A. M’Lean, corrected by Hamilton and published on 22 March 1788.22 A second volume, containing the final batch of essays and including Jay’s no. 64, came off the press on 28 May 1788. Two other American editions and two French editions were published during Hamilton’s lifetime. A third American edition (1802), printed by George F. Hopkins, contained revisions made by John Wells, a New York lawyer, presumably approved by Hamilton. Hamilton himself appears to have made some minor changes in the essays written by Jay, but there is no evidence that Jay participated in either proofreading or revising any of these editions. In addition, Madison supplied Jacob Gideon Jr., a printer in Washington, D.C., with corrections of the papers he had authored. Gideon’s edition appeared in 1818.
Below are found the five The Federalist essays of John Jay, all in draft form, published through the courtesy of the present or previous owners, as well as the texts of the original newspaper version of each. As the draft versions were undated, the editors have placed the word [before] to the date when the respective published version first appeared.
Variances between JJ’s Drafts and the Printed Versions
A careful workman even under pressure, Jay labored over the drafts of The Federalist letters printed below, and the published versions differ in some cases in significant ways, markedly in the case of No. 64. Jay’s draft of The Federalist No. 3 followed up on the theme of the previous Jay letter, for which the draft has only recently been located. The Federalist No. 2 stressed the sources of national unity, while ignoring a number of compelling areas of deep division—regional, ethnic, social, racial, and religious—and underplayed the opposition of a minority at the Constitutional Convention to the document as finally adopted.
The Federalist 3 opens with a passage praising the American people as “intelligent and well informed.” In the draft the phrase “left to the” was excised and “well informed” appears without this reservation.23 This third letter focused on the role of a strong central government in preserving peace and security. The essay’s principal significance lay in its incisive criticism of the separate states, which Jay depicted as more vulnerable to local pressures, more impulsive, more aggressive, and less able to manage foreign policy. One substantive change between the draft and the published version appears in the judicial machinery for the enforcement of treaties. JJ deleted the phrase “national courts” and substituted “Courts appointed by and responsible only to one national Govt.” This change reflected sensitivity to the fears of Antifederalists of a large federal judiciary administering a body of federal common law and undermining the authority of the state courts. Even Federalists like John Rutledge of South Carolina criticized the establishment of inferior federal tribunals as making encroachments on state jurisdiction and creating unnecessary obstacles to the adoption of the new system.24 The Federal Convention had sidestepped the issue in Article III, which vests the judicial power in a Supreme Court “and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish.” Jay tried to handle the ticklish issue with circumspection.
Reflecting the opinion of international jurists like Grotius in their differentiation between “just” and “unjust” wars, Jay also made the unique point that the federal government would be in a better position under the Constitution to prevent bellicosity on the part of the Americans themselves. Jay assumes, then, that not all wars in which Americans might participate would be just ones, and that one or a few states might draw the nation into wars. Then came a significant assertion: “Not a single Indian war has yet been occasioned by aggressions of the present Fœderal Government, feeble as it is, but there are several instances of Indian hostilities having been provoked by the improper conduct of individual States, who either unable or unwilling to restrain or punish offences, have given occasion to the slaughter of many innocent inhabitants.”25
In the draft of The Federalist 4, Jay anticipated the treatment of parties and factions that was further developed in Madison’s celebrated initial contribution, The Federalist 10. Pursuing the theme of the importance of national union in averting conflicts with foreign powers, Jay begins with a quotation attributed to Joseph Addison on the effects of party conflicts: “The Parties and Divisions amongst us may [in] several Ways bring destruction upon our Country, at the same time that one united house would secure us against all the Attempts of a foreign Enemy.” Then in the final paragraph of the draft Jay speculated that if foreign governments “find us either … destitute of an effectual Government … or split into Factions or three or four independent … Republics or Confederacies … what a poor pitiful Figure will America make?” Jay acknowledges the weight of one of the most forceful contemporary arguments against party and faction, the likelihood that they would lead to foreign penetration and the establishment of outposts of alien influence in American public life.26 In these fleeting references, which he subsequently suppressed and did not publish, Jay was obviously referring to the relationship between factions and geographic divisions. Jay cautiously returned to the threat of foreign influence in his Address to the People of the State of New-York, below.
The draft of The Federalist 5 reveals Jay’s tendency as a prudent lawyer to tone down his language and avoid stridency. For example, in the seventh paragraph of the draft, Jay originally observed that “they who find themselves unjustly suspected of unkind Intentions, are by that very Circumstance naturally led to entertain them”—a phrase likely to enkindle suspicions about Federalists. He chose instead the more guarded language that appears in the final text: “Distrust naturally creates Distrust and by nothing is good will and Kind Conduct more speedily changed, than by invidious Jealousies and uncandid Imputations expressed or implied.”
A second, more substantive, change was made in the next paragraph of the draft. Discussing the potential for future hostility between a Northern and Southern confederation should America fail to unite under the proposed Constitution, Jay expressed certain Northern prejudices regarding Southerners in his speculation that Northerners would “be tempted to gather honey in the more blooming fields and milder air of their luxurious and more delicate neighbours.” Jay retained the adjectives “luxurious” and “delicate” in his final version in preference to “less hardy and less enterprizing Neighbors,” which he deleted. Jay may have realized that he should not risk offending the important Southern states that still had to be persuaded to ratify the Constitution.
The paragraph that immediately follows is the longest in Jay’s draft of The Federalist 5. Jay’s draft suggested that mutual suspicion among the “three or four Confederacies” likely to emerge in the event the Constitution was rejected would create military establishments which “would oftener be turned against each other than against a foreign Enemy. …” Jay must have concluded that the subject of standing armies, to which he had been led by his treatment of the consequences of disunion, needed more detailed analysis than could be contained within this essay. Hamilton gives the subject a full treatment in a later installment.
The concluding set of major changes from the original draft to the finished version of The Federalist 5 reveals Jay’s sound editorial judgment in cutting down verbiage, with the reduction of three paragraphs to two, and in concluding with a single, pithy sentence. Here the major substantive alteration is the deletion of another provocative sentence, both out of place and striking an unnecessarily discordant note: “Wicked Men of great Talents and ambition are the Growth of every Soil, and seldom hesitate to precipitate their Country into any Wars and Connections which may promote their Designs.” There was enough history to substantiate the assertion, with its prophetic cast, but sober second thoughts prompted its omission.
The Federalist 64, Jay’s most important statement in the series, draws upon his experience in foreign affairs. In part it reaffirmed the supremacy of treaty provisions over state law, as Jay had argued when confronted by state laws violating the peace treaty with Great Britain. But in taking up the question of the treaty power the essay in part also reflected fears aroused by the Jay—Gardoqui negotiations regarding the ability of a region or a number of states to impose treaties that were against the interest of other states. By the time The Federalist 64, was written six states had ratified, but Virginia had not, and the debate over the proposed Jay–Gardoqui Treaty was among the issues that would determine the outcome of the Virginia convention. Whether the Constitution would provide greater or less protection against cession of navigation rights to the Mississippi and “dismemberment of empire” than did the Articles of Confederation was a subject debated for two full days at the Virginia convention. Madison coached delegates on the arguments to be made in favor of the Constitution, and both volumes of The Federalist were quickly conveyed to Virginia. There Madison turned the failure of the Jay–Gardoqui negotiations into an effective illustration of the weakness of the Confederation, which could neither negotiate from a position of strength nor wage a war to enforce its claim.27 Although Jay later had to defend the treaty power at the New York convention, it seems probable that the careful composition of The Federalist 64 on the subject related more immediately to ratification issues in Virginia.
Jay reworked this essay more than any of its predecessors, and in its published version it is substantially compressed and rewritten. These revisions suggest the possibility that Jay incorporated suggestions from Hamilton or Madison, who left New York a day or two before The Federalist 64 was published. Comparing the fourth paragraph of the draft with the third paragraph of the published version reveals Jay’s constant effort to achieve a crisper style. Paragraphs five, six, and seven of the draft were either dropped or reworked. He deleted these specific points: (1) “The People at large may sometimes by Negligence or other Causes be led … into indiscreet appointments....” (2) “The State Legislatures very seldom lost Sight of their obvious Interests, or commit their Management to Men in whom they have little or no Confidence”; (3) “We must suppose that the Members from each State, however well disposed to promote the general good of the whole, will yet be still more strongly disposed to promote that of their immediate Constituents.” The above statements reflect JJ’s doubts about the judgment of the people and his conviction that state legislatures were actuated by parochial rather than national interests. On second thought he may have realized that an essay designed to have popular appeal should not strike either note.
The paragraphs on “trade and navigation” and the necessity for secrecy and dispatch in the management of foreign policy (time-tested favorite themes of Jay’s) similarly caused Jay stylistic problems. They also include a variance of the first importance from the final version. In discussing treaty making, the draft reads: “The Convention have done well therefore in so disposing of this power of making Treaties as that while they altho the president is
restrained by, must in forming them act by the Advice and Consent of the Senate, yet that he will be under no obligation to he will be able to manage all affairs of secret Intelligence in the way in which Prudence and Circumstances may suggest.” Compare this with the crisper published version that ends: “… yet he will be able to manage the business of Intelligence in such manner as prudence may suggest.” Then follows in both the draft and final version Jay’s opinion that the President could decide in “preparatory and auxiliary measures” the circumstances “which require the advice and consent of the Senate....” Jay interpreted the “advice and consent” provision of Article 2 of the Constitution to be a requirement in “forming” treaties but not in either preliminary negotiation or in steps to carry them out.
The Federalist 64 goes on to deal with those provisions of the Constitution that declared that treaties had the force of law and that treaties made in pursuance of the Constitution were “the supreme law of the land.” This interpretation is in accord with the supremacy clause of the Constitution, a provision founded upon the resolution of Congress of 7 April 1787, cited above, which Jay had drafted.
In refuting the Antifederalist objections, prompted in part by the Jay–Gardoqui negotiations, that under the Constitution two-thirds of the states could “oppress the remaining third,” Jay incorporated a final series of changes from the draft to the published version that again opened windows into areas of his thinking, which he later chose to conceal. The Federalist 64 draft draws a parallel between the nation and the states reminiscent of the nationalist ideas contained in his earlier letters to Adams and Lowell printed above.28 As the original draft phrased it, “Every objection to the federal Constitution which [these criticisms] imply may at least with equal force be applied to this State. Will the Governor and the Legislature of New York make Laws with an equal Eye to the Interest of all the Counties.” On reflection, Jay deleted this passage from his final text. The notion of reducing the status of the states vis-à-vis the federal government to that comparable to the standing of counties within a state would have ignited those very fires of suspicion that The Federalist letters were designed to allay. In the published letter Jay also dropped the last two concluding paragraphs, which by proposing that the treaty-making powers be given “a fair trial” weakened his argument.
Impact of the Federalist Papers
While the explication of The Federalist has burgeoned over the years, it is difficult to estimate its immediate impact on the public. The pro-ratification press in New York was laudatory, as were various correspondents of Jay and his collaborators, but that many Antifederal voters were converted was doubted. Writing from “Flat-Bush” on 24 December 1787, “Twenty-seven Subscribers” informed the printer of the New-York Journal that they were disgusted by seeing “Publius” in so many New York papers and asked him to discontinue publishing the series. Some considered the style and length inappropriate. Louis Guillaume Otto, French charge d’affaires, reported that The Federalist “is not at all useful to educated men and it is too scholarly and too long for the ignorant”. Others challenged the relevance of the series to the important issues in the debate. In his An Additional Number of Letters, the “Federal Farmer” dismissed “Publius” because his writings had “but little relation to the great question, whether the constitution is fitted to the condition and character of the people or not”. Similarly, in an “Anecdote of Publius”, the writer quoted “A Country relation of Publius” as claiming that little was said about it, “as the attention of the people was so much occupied on the subject of the new constitution, they had no time or inclination to read any essay on foreign affairs.”29
1. The most important of these were by “Cato,” which were traditionally attributed to New York’s Governor George Clinton, or more recently to Abraham Yates Jr. These were soon followed by the writings of “Brutus,” whose first of sixteen essays appeared in the New York Journal on 18 Oct., and many others, notably the widely circulated “Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republican,” which was first published in November. “Brutus” has been variously identified as Melancton Smith, Robert Yates, Abraham Yates Jr., George Clinton, and Thomas Tredwell. See, generally, Herbert J. Storing, ed., The Complete Anti-Federalist (7 vols.; Chicago, 1981); 19: 5–7, 58–59, 103–5.
2. On the indeterminate origination for the series, see 19: 137; 289. For the crediting of Hamilton, see 4: 287. For the dinner, see Sarah Livingston Jay’s Invitation Lists of 6–22 Oct. 1787, below. Duer’s essays were printed in the Daily Advertiser (New York), 30 Oct. and 1 Dec; the New-York Packet, 16 Nov; and the Independent Journal (New York), 28 Nov. 1787. See 19: 148, 267, 313, 341. On Gouverneur Morris’s refusal to participate, see his letter to W. H. Wells, 24 Sept. 1815, in Jared Sparks, ed., The Life of Gouverneur Morris, with Selections from His Correspondence and Miscellaneous Papers (3 vols.; Boston, 1832), 3: 339.
3. On JJ’s health, see JJ to WL, 11 Feb. 1788, Dft, NNC (EJ: 8290). For a comprehensive analysis of the important contributions of JJ’s style, tone, and imagery to the success of his writings on the Constitution, see 223–40; and Albert Furtwangler, “Strategies of Candour in the ‘Federalist,’” Early American Literature 14, no. 1 (Spring 1979): 91–109, esp. 91, 95–96.
4. JM to TJ, 10 Aug. 1788, 13: 497; 11: 227. Years later, however, JM reportedly volunteered a different and unlikely version of why JJ discontinued his contribution: “After a few numbers had been published, Mr. Jay remarked to him [Madison] and Mr. Hamilton, that his [Jay’s] style of writing was not calculated for the undertaking in which they had embarked. It was too mild and placid; and requested them to Exonerate him from any further connection with the publication. To this they assented.” D, [n.d.], NHi: Rufus King.
5. For eyewitness and contemporary accounts of the Doctors’ Riot and JJ’s injury, and their widespread circulation, see below, SLJ to Susannah French Livingston, 17 Apr. 1788; New-York Packet, 15, 18 and 25 Apr. 1788; Pennsylvania Packet, 19 and 21 Apr.; Pennsylvania Mercury, and Pennsylvania Journal, both 19 Apr; Maryland Journal, 25 and 29 Apr.; New-Hampshire Spy, 25 Apr.; Salem Mercury, 29 Apr.; Carlisle Gazette, 30 Apr. and 7 May; New-Jersey Journal (Elizabethtown, N.J.), and Norfolk and Portsmouth Journal (Norfolk, Va.), both 30 Apr.; New-York Herald, Newport Herald (Newport, R.I.), United States Chronicle (Boston), and Cumberland Gazette (Portland, Maine), all 1 May; Freeman’s Oracle, 2 May; American Mercury, and Boston Gazette, both 5 May; Berkshire Chronicle, 15 May; 25, 60–66; 20: 914–15. For newspaper reports on the probable mortality of JJ’s wounds, see Independent Chronicle (Boston), 8 May; Massachusetts Gazette (Boston), 9 May; Hampshire Gazette (Northampton, Mass.), 14 May; Essex Journal (Newburyport, Mass.), 14 May; and, under the heading “Extract of a letter from New-York, dated May 5,” United States Chronicle (Boston), 15 May.
6. 72; GW to JJ, 15 May 1788, below.
7. JM to TJ, 10 Aug. 1788, 11: 227; 13: 497–99. For the speculation on authorship, see also 19: 138–40; Joseph Jones to JM, 18 Dec. 1787, 10, 329–30.
8. 13: 488.
9. See, for example, the New-York Journal, and the Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser, both 30 Nov. 1787. The piece was ultimately printed not only in other New York papers, but 11 other newspapers outside New York. See 19: 306–7.
10. GW to JM, 7 Dec. 1787, LbkC, DLC: Washington; , 5: 477; 10: 296–99.
11. JM to GW, 20 Dec. 1787, 10: 333: , 5: 500.
12. See JJ to Vaughan, 1 Dec. 1787, and notes, below, and 19: 306–7. “D” in the New York Daily Advertiser (New York), 12 Dec. 1787, also called for JJ’s contradiction of the report, asserting “I have been induced to offer this hint, in consequence of a conversation I entered into this morning with a gentleman of some consideration, who loves his country, and is warmly attached to the New Government. This honest American candidly acknowledged, that he would distrust and abandon the good opinion he had formed of the Federal System, if it was reprobated in such terms by Mr. Jay; whom he considered as a gentleman learned in the science of legislation, and much conversant with modern politics:—an American too, of tried integrity, who aimed at the real happiness, aggrandizement and glory of his country.” 19: 402–3.
13. Antifederalists also spread the word that JM was also opposed to the Constitution. Lawrence Taliaferro to JM, 16 Dec. 1787, 10: 329. For “One of the People,” see 15: 92–94; and for further allegations of Antifederalist deception, 19: 307.
14. “I did not chance upon Jay’s drafts of the numbers written by him until your volume was printed,” wrote John Jay II to Henry B. Dawson (New-York Evening Post, 16 Feb. 1864), referring to Dawson’s edition of The Federalist, published that year (New York, 1864); Correspondence between John Jay and Henry B. Dawson, and between James A. Hamilton and Henry B. Dawson, concerning the Fœderalist (New York, 1864) [Sabin Americana], 8. Regarding the draft of The Federalist 2, the New-York Evening Post of 24 Mar. 1864 reported “Among the valuable autographs contributed to the ‘Curiosity Shop’ at the [Metropolitan] Fair is the second number of the ‘Federalist,’ in the handwriting of John Jay, and accompanied by a copy of the New-York Packet of November 2, 1787, in which the article was originally printed.” The article then quoted JJ on the importance of union. The draft’s presence at the fair was also noted by the Daily Advertiser (Boston) of 28 Mar. 1864. See also Catalogue of Articles Contained in the Museum of the Metropolitan Fair, April 4th, 1864 (New York, 1864), 7.
15. 3: 260–61n.
16. See 4: 297n.
17. For JJ’s speech on the treaty power, see both John McKesson’s and Melancton Smith’s notes on the debates in the New York ratifying convention for 2 July 1788. AD, NHi: McKesson notes (EJ: 13422); AD, N: Melancton Smith notes; DHRC, 22: 2069–71, 2075. According to the 14 Nov. 1807 issue of the Philadelphia magazine, The Portfolio, notations reputed to be in AH’s handwriting and marked in a copy of The Federalist, attributed to JJ’s authorship Nos. 2, 3, 4, 5, and 54; this attribution appeared again in the so-called “Benson list,” which AH allegedly wrote in the office of Egbert Benson, two days before his duel with Aaron Burr. Therein the attribution of No. 54 to JJ was quickly corrected by a friend of AH as a slip for 64 when it was published (New-York Evening Post, 27 Jan. 1818).
JM, whose recollection of the respective authorship of The Federalist letters has been substantiated by studies of the internal evidence, may also have been guilty of a slip of memory in regard to No. 64. An article signed “Corrector,” appeared in the National Intelligencer of 20 March 1817 that according to its anonymous author was copied from “a pencilled memorandum in the handwriting of Mr. Madison.” It stated on “indubitable authority” that “Mr. Madison wrote Nos. 10, 14, 18, 19, 20, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 62, 63, and 64. Mr. Jay wrote Nos. 2, 3, 4, and 5; and Mr. Hamilton the residue.” In this instance “64” could not have been a slip for “54,” which is also, and in this case correctly, claimed for JM.
In 1817 JJ answered a query about The Federalist 54 incorrectly identifying it as one he wrote, when he was in fact referring to 64. He corrected the mistake in a letter to Peter Augustus Jay of 2 June 1817. Dft, NNC (EJ: 9272).
18. John Jay II to George H. Moore, 11 Dec. 1863, ALS, NHi, filed with the draft of The Federalist 64 (EJ: 10753).
19. Dawson published the draft, with errors and omissions, in the Historical Magazine (May 1867). He later described what was sent him as “two original drafts of number XLIII, in different stages of its composition.” Correspondence between John Jay and Henry B. Dawson, 16, 24; Dawson to John Jay II, New-York Evening Post, 8 Mar. 1864. On the authorship of particular essays of The Federalist, see 4: 287–301; 10, 259–63; 19: 140, 540–49.
20. John Jay II to George H. Moore, 11 Dec. 1863, ALS, NHi, filed with the draft of The Federalist 64 (EJ: 10753). For the polemics between Dawson and John Jay II, focused not only on the historical issues but also on the issue of state sovereignty, see Correspondence between John Jay and Henry B. Dawson; and New Plottings in Aid of the Rebel Doctrine of State Sovereignty: Mr. Jay’s Second Letter on Dawson’s Introduction to the Federalist (New York and London, 1864) [Sabin Americana].
21. For reprinting outside New York City, see 13: 490–92.
22. For AH’s authorship of the preface to the M’Lean edition and his role in correcting the essays, we have not only the assertion in M’Lean’s advertisement, but Madison’s recollections. Gaillard Hunt, ed., The Writings of James Madison (9 vols.; New York, 1900–1910), 8: 411.
23. For a similar reference to “a Degree of Intelligence & Information in the Mass of our People,” see JJ to TJ, 8 Sept. 1787, above. See also JJ’s address, [c. 12 Apr. 1788], below; and his Charges to the Grand Juries on the Eastern Circuit, 4 Apr.–20 May 1790, Dft, NNC (EJ: 8125); 2: 25–30.
24. 1: 124.
25. On the rarity of such criticism of American treatment of Indians over the next 100 years, see Garry Wills, Explaining America: The Federalist (New York, 1981), 251.
26. On the relationship between factions, geographical divisions, and foreign influence and corruption, see also George Washington’s “Farewell Address,” ADS, NN; printed American Daily Advertiser (Philadelphia), 19 Sept. 1796. JM and AH contributed drafts for it, and JJ at least reviewed and commented on Hamilton’s draft. 358.
27. 11: 7, 8–10, 16, 44–51, 53.
28. JJ to Lowell, 10 May 1785; to JA, 4 May 1786, above.
29. See the New-York Journal, 1 and 14 Jan. 1788; 13, 493–94; 20: 558; no. 21187; 3: 234; 335–36.