#The Federalist Papers

[hiidkwhatimdoing7525]

HAMILTON WROTE… ALL THE EIGHTY FIVE!!!

[shroomiethenerd]

"The plan was to write a total of twenty-five essays, the work divided evenly among the three men."

Twenty-five is not divisible by three.

[pub-lius]

do you know how hamilton felt about the madison-hamilton fallout? just realized everything i know about it is from madison’s perspective

oho boy do i

This has actually been a subject of interest of mine since I read The Three Lives of James Madison by Noah Feldman (great book, highly recommend). In the study of Alexander Hamilton, this is a crucial event that would define his proceeding political actions.

For some background for those who may not know what anon is referencing, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison were colleagues and "friends" (if you could call it that) from their time in the Confederation Congress until Hamilton submitted his financial plan to Congress, which was all in all about a decade. In that time, they lobbied for a convention to revise the Articles of Confederation, worked together in the Constitutional Convention, and wrote The Federalist papers together in defense of strong federal government together. The Federalist was like the manifesto of the Federalist party, which placed Hamilton at the head of that party, and, arguably, James Madison as well, until he switched to the Democratic Republican party.

Hamilton's experience was far different from Madison's, just in general, but especially when it came to close friendships between men. The closest relationship he had before James Madison was with John Laurens, who we know died tragically in 1782. Although we are all aware of my feelings on rat bastard Ron Chernow, I thought that this excerpt of his biography of Hamilton described this point very well.

"[Laurens'] death deprived Hamilton of the political peer, the steadfast colleague, that he was to need in his tempestuous battles to consolidate the union. He would enjoy a brief collaboration with James Madison... But he was more of a solitary crusader without Laurens, lacking an intimate lifelong ally such as Madison and Jefferson found in each other," (Alexander Hamilton, Chernow 172-73)

As Chernow mentioned, James Madison was already closely associated with Thomas Jefferson, who he kept well appraised of the circumstances in America while Jefferson was serving a diplomatic position in France. In my personal opinion, I think it was largely due to this that Madison began to attack Hamilton later on, since as soon as Jefferson arrived back from Paris, Madison suddenly had severe moral oppositions to Hamilton's plan, rather than just rational apprehension.

I also want to touch on Hamilton's perspective in their friendship, along with their fallout, specifically when it comes to The Federalist. Hamilton put such a high value on his work, and he held himself to a very high standard. There are a couple instances of him outsourcing his work to other men he admired, such as his last political stance, that the truth of an accusation can be used in libel cases. He asked several men to help him in writing a larger treatise on the matter than what he was able to make (due to yk the bullet that got put in his diaphragm), but these weren't just his friends. These men were very crucial figures in American law, which shows that, unlike men like Jefferson, he was very selective in who he chose to associate with when it came to his work.

This wasn't any different in 1787. When he chose John Jay and James Madison to assist in writing The Federalist, his reasons for both had nothing to do with their personal relationships. Jay was one of the most successful legal minds of the new country, and James Madison, was not only a Virginian, but was an absolute genius and fucking workhorse. If you like him or not, or if you like the Constitution or not, its undeniable that the Virginia Plan was absolute fucking genius, and Hamilton knew that.

This also shows a great amount of trust in Madison. Hamilton was an incredibly untrusting dude. He kept most of his emotions and personality away from work, and really the only people who knew who he was entirely were close family, one or two family friends included. They were the only people who knew his background, which is directly tied into his work, which was the most important thing to him. Without his work, in his eyes, he would have nothing. So for him to trust Madison with something he and the world viewed as one of his most important contributions to American history, that was incredibly significant.

Also I should mention that Hamilton definitely knew how important The Federalist would be, and this is clear in his introductory essay, which is confirmed that he himself wrote.

One thing that any Hamilton historians will agree on is that he was so set in his ways. If there was a moral or philosophical question before him, he would think about it constantly, consult his books and his peers, and once he decided on his stance, there was little to no chance of changing that. The Federalist are, if not anything else, the basis of Hamilton's political thinking. Hamilton, being the arrogant bitch that he was, assumed that every other genius would be equally steadfast in their beliefs.

But James Madison was different in that regard. He was also very tied in with his state's interest, as well as that of the planter class. Hamilton also had a strong bias towards his state and class, but not with the same attitude as someone who was born into it.

Therefore, when Madison openly opposed his Report on Public Credit with a speech in the House of Representatives, Hamilton viewed it as a deep betrayal of his trust, his work, and his principles. Hamilton saw this as a devastating insult to everything he stood for by someone he thought he could completely rely on. This was the 18th century burn book.

That speech immediately kicked off Hamilton lobbying to oppose Madison's counter-proposal, which he won because, frankly, Madison hadn't been expecting Hamilton to immediately come at him with the full arsenal, but Hamilton didn't half-arsenal anything. It was after that that Hamilton was able to process what had happened. According to one of Hamilton's allies, Manasseh Cutler, Hamilton saw Madison's opposition as "a perfidious desertion of the principles which [Madison] was solemnly pledged to defend." Ouch.

The final break between them was on the subject of the National Bank aspect of Hamilton's plan. This is when Madison redefined himself as a Democratic-Republican with a firm belief in strict construction of the Constitution, giving Hamilton free reign to take out his hurt feelings on him through the art of pussy politics* and this entirely dissolved the friendship that had once been there.

*pussy politics (noun): a form of politics in which grown men act like pussies by only supporting the governmental actions that benefit their families/wealth/land/class/etc. and it is very embarrassing and frustrating to sit through

Hamilton would spend a large part of his career battling Madison, and talking a lot of shit about him, which is what has allowed me to paint this stupid ass picture of two grown men fighting over banks. The personal language that he uses in regards to Madison is very different to the accusatory tone he took with his other enemies, and that in it of itself says a lot, but I hope this was able to shed some light on why Hamilton felt the way he did and what exactly he felt. Again, I love talking about this, so feel free to ask follow up questions!

[potatoesarecheese]

uuuugh I don't wanna read the federalist papers. why would you make me read them, mr professor sir? why must you base half my grade on this paper? can I not simply sit in my room all day and wonder about hypothetical situations?

[elgallinero]

Practice English

youtube.com/playlist

[finnalek]

Just pointing out how good of a quote

“It could never be more truly said than of the first remedy, that it was worse than the disease. Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.” Is. Like that’s so quotable???? I love this sm??? I can’t- like- I might make this a poster bc- like- it’s such a good quote/excerpt???

(I know this is stupid and someone probably already pointed this out it’s just something I noticed while reading)

[deborabuerk-the-write-stuff]

Celebrating Constitution Week: A Nod to History

[deathzgf]

i don't want to do the extended essay

[oldblogger]

States of the United States vs. the Federal Government

States of the United States vs. the Federal Government: http://wp.me/prazu-12S

  From before the adoption of the US Constitution in 1787, there has been strenuous argument, sometimes bordering on the violent, between those who wanted a strong central government and those who saw the individual states as the primary locus of governmental power—except for those 18 specific powers granted to the two houses of the federal government, as enumerated in the Constitution. (Former…

[hamiltonsaurus]

I like to imagine Alexander took other soldiers out and made flower crowns and soft stuff when work got too stressful for them, I’m sure he didn’t, but it helps with the fact he cheated on his wife, then just… died??

Maybe he had a little flower garden he would visit every so often….

Anyways I was gone for awhile and now I’m not so yeah, hi

[sophiemaryjanes]

not a democrat not a republican but a secret third thing (hamiltonian federalist)

[bea-schuyler]

if i have to read one more fucking federalist paper i will punch my wall why couldnt alexander hamilton shut the fuck up jesus christ man

(amrev fandom this is a joke i love yall im studing the revokution so obviously im joking)

[visenyaism]

actually completely reversing my opinion on chatgpt. the ability to instascale a text down a few reading levels is like incomprehensibly goated for me

[klanced]

i hope we have klance vs destiel in one of the polls itd be so fucking funny. we need to manifest this.

i have prayed for times like these

[chaotic-history]

Guys I get to do a presentation in AP Gov on Literally Anything what should I do it on

[187days]

Day Fifty-Five

I had an IEP meeting this morning, which I thought was going to last longer than it did, so I had an unexpected half hour to write up a new lesson that I'm going to use in Global Studies on Monday. Yay for that.

Today in Global Studies, students took a vocab quiz, and then did some graphing for me in Google sheets. They were each given a continent, and had to make a chart to show what percentage of the population adheres to each of the five major world religions. So we got a bit of geography and a bit of stats in there today. Once I'd graded their quizzes, they shared their chart work, and we discussed yesterday's assignments on Buddhism, as well.

In APGOV, we went over their most recent test. Most of the scores were solid, but I made some suggestions for the students who struggled. I also reminded them that if they're frustrated because they've never had to study so much before, or they've never found a class this hard, that it's a college-level course; it's supposed to be harder than their other courses. I don't think they'd really thought about that. A couple are coming to see me during flex block next week to learn some different study strategies and such, and I'm confident they'll see better results in the future.

Funny thing: the two boys who are locked in a battle for the highest test score making dramatic noises each time they realized what they'd done wrong on the few questions they didn't earn points for.

After going over the test, I lectured on the role of the judicial branch, fielded a ton of questions about trials and appeals, discussed Federalist 78 (they'd read it for homework this week), and had students read about Marbury v. Madison. I also had them pair up for a project we'll do next week on major SCOTUS cases.

I did a bit of grading after the bell, but I didn't want to stay too long because I had errands to run and I wanted a rest. I'm chaperoning the Key Club all-nighter tonight. Pizza and 3AM dodgeball, here I come!