Federalist Papers - Structure and Content

Structure and Content

In Federalist No. 1, Hamilton listed six topics to be covered in the subsequent articles:

  1. "The utility of the UNION to your political prosperity" – covered in No. 2 through No. 14
  2. "The insufficiency of the present Confederation to preserve that Union"—covered in No. 15 through No. 22
  3. "The necessity of a government at least equally energetic with the one proposed to the attainment of this object"—covered in No. 23 through No. 36
  4. "The conformity of the proposed constitution to the true principles of republican government"—covered in No. 37 through No. 84
  5. "Its analogy to your own state constitution"—covered in No. 85
  6. "The additional security which its adoption will afford to the preservation of that species of government, to liberty and to prosperity"—covered in No. 85.

Furtwangler notes that as the series grew, this plan was somewhat changed. The fourth topic expanded into detailed coverage of the individual articles of the Constitution and the institutions it mandated, while the two last topics were merely touched on in the last essay.

The papers can be broken down by author as well as by topic. At the start of the series, all three authors were contributing; the first twenty papers are broken down as eleven by Hamilton, five by Madison and four by Jay. The rest of the series, however, is dominated by three long segments by a single writer: No. 21 through No. 36 by Hamilton, No. 37 through 58 by Madison, written while Hamilton was in Albany, and No. 65 through the end by Hamilton, published after Madison had left for Virginia.

Read more about this topic:  Federalist Papers

Famous quotes containing the words structure and, structure and/or content:

    With sixty staring me in the face, I have developed inflammation of the sentence structure and definite hardening of the paragraphs.
    James Thurber (1894–1961)

    There is no such thing as a language, not if a language is anything like what many philosophers and linguists have supposed. There is therefore no such thing to be learned, mastered, or born with. We must give up the idea of a clearly defined shared structure which language-users acquire and then apply to cases.
    Donald Davidson (b. 1917)

    ... the aspiring immigrant ... is not content to progress alone. Solitary success is imperfect success in his eyes. He must take his family with him as he rises.
    Mary Antin (1881–1949)