On this day in 1787, the Federalist Papers make their appearance

Today in 1787, the Federalist Papers made their appearance into the American public sphere. Printed in three New York newspapers, the essays (which were written and printed in an extremely rapid pace—often three essays per week) would help defend the idea that the United States needed a new Constitution, a Constitution that would grant far more power to the federal government than the governing Articles of Confederation.

To celebrate the day, here is one of my favorite passages from the series, from Federalist Paper 1, written by Alexander Hamilton, but signed Publius (an inspiration for my own nom de plume). I broke out some paragraphs merely for readability:

An enlightened zeal for the energy and efficiency of government will be stigmatized as the offspring of a temper fond of despotic power and hostile to the principles of liberty. An over-scrupulous jealousy of danger to the rights of the people, which is more commonly the fault of the head than of the heart, will be represented as mere pretense and artifice, the stale bait for popularity at the expense of the public good.

It will be forgotten, on the one hand, that jealousy is the usual concomitant of love, and that the noble enthusiasm of liberty is apt to be infected with a spirit of narrow and illiberal distrust. On the other hand, it will be equally forgotten that the vigor of government is essential to the security of liberty; that, in the contemplation of a sound and well-informed judgment, their interest can never be separated; and that a dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidden appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government.

History will teach us that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants.

Go ahead, read the whole thing (and more of them) over here.

Related posts:

1. Florida State Senator Jim Norman wants to make photographing farms a felony
2. The Cheney Delusion
3. Happy last night of Chanukah! It’s not too late to make some latkes…