—This is a guest post by Patrick Hastings, a specialist in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division. It also appears in the May/June issue of the Library of Congress Magazine, which focuses on America 250. The Library has within its collections two fascinating copies of “The Federalist” with deep personal ties to three Founding Fathers. The Federalist Papers originally were published in New York newspapers as 85 stand-alone essays advocating for the ratification of the U.S. Constitution. These foundational texts appeared under the pseudonym “Publius” but were written by an authorial tag team of Alexander Hamilton and James Madison (with John Jay contributing only five essays due to illness). In an incredible feat of writerly productivity, Hamilton and Madison published multiple essays each week, releasing an avalanche of arguments for why the proposed Constitution would ensure the new nation’s survival and prosperity. These essays were first collected and bound together in spring 1788 in a two-volume edition titled “The Federalist: A Collection of Essays, Written in Favour of the New Constitution, as Agreed upon by the Federal Convention, September 17, 1787.” Archibald McLean, the printer of the first edition, complained about the project’s expanding size, saying, “When I engaged…
Creative
How Eliza Hamilton’s copy of “The Federalist” wound up in Thomas Jefferson’s library
Source: Library of Congress Blogs — US Government, Public Domain