Alexander Hamilton’s Letter to the People of New York
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Extracts from Federalist No. 1
Editor’s Note: The Federalist is a series of 85 essays written by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison created to urge New Yorkers to ratify the proposed United States Constitution. Federalist No. 1, authored by Alexander Hamilton under the pen name, Publius, introduces the series and argues that two great “opposing” interests: zeal for “the energy and efficiency of government” and zeal for “the rights of the people” cannot be separated. The six paragraphs excerpted below are edited for today’s audiences. Read the full text of Federalist No. 1 here.
To the People of the State of New York:
It seems to have been reserved to the people of this country to decide the important question: whether societies of men are really capable of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend on accident and force. Happy will it be if our choice should be directed by a judicious estimate of our true interests, unperplexed and unbiased by considerations not connected with the public good.
It cannot be doubted that much of the opposition [to the new Constitution] will spring from honest errors of minds led astray by preconceived jealousies and fears. So numerous and powerful are the causes which give a false bias to the judgment, that we [often] see wise and good men on the wrong as well as on the right side of questions of the first magnitude to society.
Nothing could be more ill-judged than that intolerant spirit which has characterized political parties. [W]e have indications that…in this as in all cases of great national discussion, a torrent of angry and malignant passions will be let loose. [The opposite parties] will mutually hope to evince the justness of their opinions, and to increase the number of their converts by the loudness of their declamations and the bitterness of their invectives.
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…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 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 sound and well-informed judgment, their interest can never be separated, and that ambition more often lurks behind the mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government.
My countrymen, I own to you that…I am clearly of opinion it is your interest to adopt [the new Constitution]. I am convinced that this is the safest course for your liberty, your dignity, and your happiness. I frankly acknowledge to you my convictions, and I will freely lay before you the reasons on which they are founded. …My arguments will be open to all and may be judged by all. They shall at least be offered in a spirit which will not disgrace the cause of truth. --Publius