A new nation, conceived in liberty...

when the constitution was first written, many people did NOT support it. They felt it gave the government much to much power. The federalists alexander hamilton, john jay, and james madison, did not however. They wrote a series of letters to the new york newspaper defending the constitution and they are all compiled here. What lies ahead is very fascinating readings.

Topics discussed range from foreign force and influence to war between the states (a possibility art the time} tothe bill of rights. This is all great reading if you care about the constitution. It gives you the reasons why it needed to be created and why people opposed it. Did you know that before the constitution states were allowed to have their own currency? Or that the federal govt. had a duty to maintain an army but no power to tax to fund it?

Hamilton even makes a great case to NOT include the bill of rights, if you can believe it. In paper #84, he claims that a including a bill of rights would let the federal govt assume that all rights not on the bill of rights were automatically the govts. Given the individualistic nature of the constitution, hamilton felt this bill would be counter-productive. He turned out to be exactly right.

This is just one of the great things you can get from the federalist papers.