Review of The Federalist Papers

I have finally finished The Federalist Papers and I have to say it wasn’t what I initially expected.  Overall, it was a good read, but there is a lot within the 85 papers and much of it was very complicated.  It’s no wonder, however, since it was written back in the late 1700s where people had a more sophisticated command of the English language and a much better education.

When I first started reading it, I believed that it would be some limited government series and why the United States Constitution was a plan for a limited national government.  Unfortunately, this couldn’t be farther from the truth.  In those days, the whole concept of limited government was pretty much a given, the exact opposite of how things are these days, and the primary purpose of the Federalist Papers were much different.

The main purpose was to argue that the United States Constitution described a better system of government than the Articles of Confederation.  In essence, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay were arguing that the Constitution was not a perfect document, but it would be superior to what they already had.

The first ten or so papers were written with the intent to show how a confederacy would eventually dissolve as the interests of the Sovereign States would conflict in a manner that the Congress as defined by the Articles wouldn’t be able to resolve them.  Several historical references and foreign government systems, past and present, are referred to and I wasn’t too keen on what they were.  The book I had, though, had a lot of references in the back that helped clarify anything I didn’t know about.  That’s always good, considering the overall lack of historical education I received in school, save for 20th century history (for Europe and America) and United States history.

The papers spend a lot of time going over many of the perceived shortcomings from the opponents of the Constitution.  I don’t have a copy of the Anti-Federalist Papers yet, but they did clarify enough of the opposing arguments and responded to them sufficiently.

The book itself took me a while to finish, for several reasons, but one main reason is that it is a very difficult read and can be very boring at times.  While the insights of our founders is interesting to read, it is not without its shortcomings in maintaining my attention.  This is not the fault of any of the founders, as it wasn’t written for someone like me, but for New Yorkers in the 1700s.  And sophisticated ones at that.

Overall, though, I’d say that this is must read for any American.  It would help all of us to better understand the reasoning behind various aspects of the Constitution.  For example, I learned that the founders felt that no one would remain a Federal judge past age 60 and so they didn’t bother to place either term limits or age limits on any of those positions.

In any case, I encourage everyone to read it as best as they can in order to get a better perspective on these things.  Now I just have to find a copy of the Anti-Federalist papers and figure out Patrick Henry’s perspective on these things.  The Constitution was not the original intent of the convention, you know, as it was originally called to resolve the shortcomings of the Articles itself, not completely rewrite it.</I< p>