in the larger States of Massachusetts, Virginia, and New York. Massachusetts became the sixth State to ratify, on February 6, 1788, but by the slim margin of 187 to 168. Maryland ratified, 63 to 11, on April 28, and South Carolina voted in favor of the Constitution on May 23 by 149 to 73. New Hampshire became the ninth State to ratify, on June 21, 1788, thereby putting the Constitution into effect. The vote there was perilously close, however: 57 to 46.
Thus, when Virginia ratified the Constitution on June 25 and New York followed suit on July 26, 1788, the Constitution was already in place. The margin of victory in both states was nevertheless a narrow 89 to 79 in Virginia and a breathtaking 30 to 27 in New York. North Carolina, the only State to reject the Constitution, voted a second time and on November 21, 1789, finally agreed to join the Union, by a vote of 195 to 77.38 On May 29, 1790, Rhode Island grudgingly became the last of the thirteen original States to ratify—by a plurality of only two votes, 34 to 32.
The great debate over the Constitution extended beyond the walls of the ratifying conventions, of course, and throughout the nation there was an outpouring of pamphlets, sermons, and newspaper essays on the new plan of government. A wide variety of views was expressed, ranging from complete to conditional acceptance with amendments to flat rejection.39 Those who favored ratification were called Federalists, and those opposed, for lack of a better term, came to be known as the Anti-Federalists. The Federalists tended to favor a stronger national government, which the new Constitution promised to bring, whereas the Anti-Federalists inclined toward a weaker national government that better protected States’ rights.
Alexander Hamilton, who had been a delegate to the Philadelphia Convention, was the leader of the ratification forces in New York. Though only thirty years old, he had already acquired a national reputation. After distinguishing himself as a leader in battle during the early stages of the Revolution, he was selected by General Washington to be an aide-de-camp. He served in this capacity for four years. Later, upon resuming command in the field, he once again demonstrated his bravery and leadership in 1781 in the Battle of Yorktown. After this decisive event, he served briefly (1782–1783) in the Continental Congress as a delegate from New York. Hamilton was an ardent nationalist who believed in a strong national government, far stronger than that provided for by the Articles of Confederation. As a member of the State legislature, he was primarily responsible for New York’s participation in the Annapolis Convention of 1786.
Hamilton was also instrumental in persuading the New York legislature to participate in the Constitutional Convention. New York sent only three delegates: Alexander Hamilton, Robert Yates, and John Lansing. Hamilton did not speak frequently in the Convention and was absent much of the time because of personal business and political differences with the other members of the New York delegation. Both Yates and Lansing were defenders of States’ Rights who opposed the Constitution from the start. The proposed Constitution, they later told Governor George Clinton, would create “a system of consolidated Government that could not in the remotest degree have been in [the] contemplation of the Legislature of this State.” Indeed, “a general Government” such as the one proposed by the Convention in Philadelphia “must unavoidably, in a short time, be productive of the destruction of civil liberty . . . by reason of the extensive territory of the United States, the dispersed situation of its inhabitants, and the insuperable difficulty of controlling the views of a set of men possessed of all the powers of government.”40 Because each State enjoyed only one vote in the Convention and delegates were therefore required to vote as a unit rather than individually, Hamilton found himself a minority of one on most critical issues, with Yates and Lansing controlling the State’s vote on every question. On July 10, Yates and Lansing withdrew from the Convention in disgust, thereby canceling Hamilton’s vote altogether. Hamilton first left the Convention on June 29, returned briefly in mid August, and then resumed his seat in early September until the work of the Convention was completed. Despite these absences and the futility of his vote, Hamilton was present long enough to get his views before the Convention and occasionally join in the debate.
It was during the ratification struggle that Hamilton exerted the greatest influence, however, and not in the Philadelphia Convention. This he accomplished in two ways: as the moving force behind The Federalist and as the leader of the Federalists in the New York ratifying convention. The Federalist, or the “Federalist Papers” as this collection of essays is frequently called, was a collaborative effort, but it was Hamilton who organized, directed, and managed the project.
Only weeks after the Philadelphia Convention had finished its work, Hamilton perceived the need to answer Anti-Federalist attacks on the proposed Constitution that had already appeared in various New York newspapers. The letters of “Cato,” thought by some scholars to be Governor George Clinton, first appeared in the New York Journal on September 27, 1787, the same edition that carried the text of the proposed Constitution. Particularly troublesome were the essays of “Brutus,” which have been attributed by some to Hamilton’s antagonist Robert Yates. They first appeared in early October 1787 in the New York Journal and are among the best of the Anti-Federalist essays, particularly on the structure and powers of the Federal judiciary.41 Hamilton quickly sensed the importance of these essays and the need to explain the features of the new plan of government to the people of New York.
To this end he enlisted the help of James Madison and John Jay, two avid and very prominent supporters of the new Constitution.42 Hamilton could scarcely have done better than to secure the assistance of Madison in this enterprise. Despite the fact that Madison had suffered many disappointments and defeats in the Federal Convention, he was in many ways the “Father of the Constitution,”43 for it was Madison who had worked tirelessly to establish the new Constitution, and his guiding spirit could be seen behind every important development that led up to the Convention, including the Mount Vernon conference in 1784, the Annapolis Convention of 1786, and Virginia’s call for a Philadelphia convention in 1787. No less conspicuous was his leadership in the Continental Congress and in the Federal Convention itself, to say nothing of his role in the ratification struggle in 1787–1788 and in the creation of the Bill of Rights in 1789. And to this day we still rely substantially on Madison’s exhaustive Notes of the Debates in the Federal Convention in order to follow the deliberations of the Convention, determine the original intent of the Framers, and perceive the meaning of most provisions of the Constitution.44 At the age of thirty-six, Madison had already acquired a reputation of brilliance for his mastery of political and constitutional theory and extensive knowledge of great political treatises applicable to the American situation. Hamilton could also rely on Madison to bring a nationalist point of view to the project, for Madison shared Hamilton’s conviction that the young republic needed a much stronger national government if the nation were to remain free and independent.
Though only forty-two years of age, John Jay was the senior member of the triumvirate that produced The Federalist. He brought a wealth of experience to the task. During the American Revolution, Jay had served on the Committee of Correspondence and in both the first and second Continental Congresses. A prominent New York lawyer, he played a leading role in drafting New York’s first constitution in 1777, and that same year he was appointed Chief Justice of the New York Supreme Court. Upon his return to the Continental Congress in 1778, Jay was appointed to a number of diplomatic posts. In 1783, with Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, he negotiated the Treaty of Paris (1783) that officially ended the American Revolution and granted the States independence from Great Britain.
Between late October 1787 and the end of May 1788, Hamilton, Madison, and Jay wrote eighty-five essays favoring adoption of the proposed Constitution. These essays were published in four New York newspapers at irregular intervals well into the summer of 1788, and some were reprinted in Virginia and New England. While controversy over the authorship of certain essays has persisted for decades, recent scholarship confirms that Hamilton wrote fifty-one (Nos. 1, 6–9, 11–13, 15–17, 21–36, 59–61, and 65–85), Madison twenty-nine (Nos. 10, 14, 18–20, 37–58, and 62–63), and Jay, ill during much of this period, only five (Nos. 2–5 and 64). It was common in the eighteenth century, in
