Federalist No. 1 - Rejecting The Current Government

Rejecting The Current Government

The essay's major thrust is to impress upon citizens that the system which was in place prior to the Constitution was not worth keeping. Many would view this as a tall order; it can be hard to convince someone to replace something, unless it is entirely broken. Hamilton never underestimated the gravity of the decision people were faced with. He met it head on in his introductory prose:

It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force. If there be any truth in the remark, the crisis at which we are arrived may with propriety be regarded as the era in which that decision is to be made; and a wrong election of the part we shall act may, in this view, deserve to be considered as the general misfortune of mankind.

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