James Madison

The Federalist Papers James Madison Deseret Alphabet edition

The Federalist Papers consist of a series of eighty-five newspaper articles published in 1787 and 1788. They were published under the pseudonym Publius but authored by Founding Fathers Alexander Hamilton (1757?-1804), James Madison (1751-1836), and John Jay (1745-1825). Jay only contributed one article; most of the remainder were by Hamilton.

The authors' goal was to promote the ratification of the proposed Constitution of the United States by the state of New York. The Constitution had only been completed a few months before the first article appeared, and its ratification was by no means certain. The Papers have therefore a somewhat polemical tone, arguing in favor of ratification without always bothering to seriously confront the arguments against. Nonetheless, they are seen-and have been used-as providing an invaluable insight into the minds of the Founding Fathers as they penned the Constitution.



This book is in the Deseret Alphabet, a phonetic alphabet for writing English developed in the mid-19th century at the University of Deseret (now the University of Utah).