The Federalist Papers is often thought of as one of the greatest and most representative works of American political thought. But there is much more to it than that. Originally authored over the span of a six months by three of America's most prominent fathers—Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay—The Federalist Papers were a landmark contribution to the debates held in the late 1880s about the future of America's government. Additionally, they were written in defense of a document which many Americans take for granted today: the U.S. Constitution.
The Constitution was thought of by some of Hamilton, Madison, and Jay's contemporaries as a radical proposal that threatened to...