Civics In A Year
What do you really know about American government, the Constitution, and your rights as a citizen?
Civics in a Year is a fast-paced podcast series that delivers essential civic knowledge in just 10 minutes per episode. Over the course of a year, we’ll explore 250 key questions—from the founding documents and branches of government to civil liberties, elections, and public participation.
Rooted in the Civic Literacy Curriculum from the Center for American Civics at Arizona State University, this series is a collaborative project supported by the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership. Each episode is designed to spark curiosity, strengthen constitutional understanding, and encourage active citizenship.
Whether you're a student, educator, or lifelong learner, Civics in a Year will guide you through the building blocks of American democracy—one question at a time.
Civics In A Year
Behind the Pseudonym: Hamilton's PR Genius and the Constitution's Defense
The Federalist Papers emerged as a strategic response to critics of the newly drafted Constitution. Alexander Hamilton organized James Madison and John Jay to write under the pseudonym "Publius" to advocate for ratification.
• Hamilton, Madison, and Jay published 85 essays defending the Constitution against critics who were already writing under Roman pseudonyms like Cato, Brutus, and Federal Farmer
• Hamilton demonstrated PR genius by claiming the positive title "Federalist" while opponents became stuck with the negative label "Anti-Federalist"
• The name "Publius" strategically referenced a Roman hero who helped establish the Roman Republic
• The Federalist Papers argued that a true federal republic required a strong central government alongside state governments
• Key themes included America's survival as a union, the need for separated powers, and the protection of republican liberty
• Despite later political differences between the authors, the Federalist Papers maintained such intellectual integrity that Jefferson and Madison included them in the University of Virginia's required curriculum
• Arizona State University houses an original 1788 edition of the Federalist Papers in its library collection
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School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership
Welcome back to Civics in a Year. I am very excited about this topic. I'm so excited that we have lots of questions not for today but in general on this. But we have our Fairlifts leader, dr Carice, back and today we're going to talk about the Federalist Paper. So, dr Carice, I know there's a lot of fans of the Broadway show Hamilton and there's lots of quotes I can sing for you, but I'm going to spare everybody's ears. So one specifically is when they're talking about the Federalist Papers and you know, john Jay got sick after writing however many, and then Madison and Hamilton wrote the other ones, and it just is this big thing and Hamilton wrote the other ones, and it just is this big thing. So help us with this. Who wrote the Federalist Papers and what did those authors really want Americans to understand? Kind of what was the purpose of the Federalist Papers.
Speaker 2:Well, it's great that we are doing several episodes on the Federalist.
Speaker 2:It's such an important text I'm going to suggest by the end of our time together today that the Federalist is important to understand as part of the great dialogue and debate of the founding. Who wrote the Federalist Papers, advocates of ratification of the Constitution, who were catching up to the critics of the Constitution who were already writing in the newspapers in various states saying don't ratify this Constitution. So Alexander Hamilton in New York, who had fought with Washington as an officer in the Revolutionary War, very senior aide to George Washington, was then a Confederation Congressman right the single house of the national legislature, so to speak, under the Irish Confederation. He meets a guy from Virginia named James Madison, and then the third is John Jay, who you've already mentioned, who's the most famous of the three, another New Yorker. So here's Hamilton in New York who comes up with this idea. Wow, there are anti-federalists. Now I'll get to what that means. There are opponents of critics of the Constitution already writing under pseudonyms, which I'll talk about what that means, under a pen name Cato is one, federal Farmer is another, brutus is another, sentinel is another. Okay, these folks are already out there. In September and October of 1787, just as the Constitutional Convention is closing and Confederation Congress is sending this document out to the states. Debate this for ratification as a new frame of government for America, america. The opponents are out there. First and Hamilton lawyer, liberally, educated, good writer Washington appreciated that about him says we're going to get organized. We might lose some of these ratification debates in the states and these votes. New York is a crucial one. It's a big state, prominent state, and so he organizes a team. James Madison happens to be around up in New York and he invites Madison they had been friends together in the Congress from these two very different states, north and South, thinking there needs to be constitutional reform. Madison ends up being one of the big brains of the Constitutional Convention.
Speaker 2:And then the third one is the most famous. He's the most senior of the three. He was basically the foreign secretary of the Confederation Congress but was also involved in the 1783 Treaty of Paris, a treaty which resolves the Revolutionary War for the Americans. So John Jay, lawyer, scholar, so yes, as you mentioned, jay gets sick. They want him in. He's smart, he's distinguished, and then he doesn't contribute as much, but his contributions are important. And then the two younger ones, ambitious, energetic advocates of constitutional reform.
Speaker 2:One other thing I'll say about Alexander Hamilton. Before he was a Broadway star, he was a brilliant PR guy, public relations communicator. He comes up with the idea of pulling together multiple authors under one name, publius. I'll explain what that means. And he also immediately has the idea of a book. This is complicated, this Constitution. There are smart people, these names I just mentioned to you. These are not dumb people writing just bumper sticker, stupid statements against Radford. These are smart people. We're going to have to up our game and we're going to need a lot of essays to do it. Think of these as op-ed essays. Opinion essays in a newspaper right, but he thinks of it as a book from the beginning. Opinion essays in a newspaper right, but he thinks of it as a book from the beginning. So two other ideas to well, I'll mention just one now. Why the name Publius, or the one name of these multiple authors?
Speaker 2:Well, as I mentioned, some Roman Republican names had already been taken. Cato is writing against ratification in New York. Brutus is a name that's being used. And what are they doing? They're invoking the idea of liberty against tyrannical authority. One is against the Roman kings, so the Roman king monarchy has to be overthrown to establish the Roman Republic. But then, centuries later, when this warlord figure, julius Caesar, arises, it's still the Republic, but there's concern that we're losing it. Caesar is becoming a monarch or imperial or something like that, and Caesar is assassinated. Well, one of the people who assassinates Julius Caesar is a man named Brutus, and one of the people who overthrew the Roman monarchy centuries earlier to establish Republic was a guy named Brutus. So we now have two Brutuses and they're writing against. They're taking this pen name these Americans Brutus, against ratification of the Constitution.
Speaker 2:This is a consolidated government. It's not really a republic. It's not really going to keep us free. This is a consolidated government. It's not really a republic. It's not really going to keep us free. This is the path back to monarchy and we fought through fear. So Hamilton PR genius, comes up with the idea of Publius. The other person overthrowing the Roman monarchy to establish the republic is a guy named Publius and his name is Publius Valerius. So it's Brutus and Publius Valerius. Together are the two most important people overthrowing Tarquin, the last king of Rome. And then Publius Valerius takes it was given the name Publicola, favoring and favored by the people, friendly to the people. Where he's given the name Publicola, favoring and favored by the people, friendly to the people. So Hamilton and there are a lot of classically educated people around. People would be reading newspapers. A lot of them would be classically educated.
Speaker 1:He's going to grab this name for Roman liberty Publius, that's where we and that was common to write under a pen name. Correct, because I mean Hamilton and Madison and John Jarrett. They're so smart, why wouldn't they want to write their names on things? Why choose a name like Publius or even? You know the people who are against the Anti-Federalists. What was the purpose in choosing a pen name?
Speaker 2:and again. So many of these Anti-Federalist authors I'll explain that had chosen pen names or pseudonyms, and some of them Roman. So the idea was on the positive side. I'm writing in a paper on a very important topic and it's not about me. It doesn't matter who I am. Take the arguments on their own merit and I do want to signal something by the name I'm choosing Federal farmer, right, I'm a common citizen out there in one of the republics and I'm worried about this proposed constitution. It's going to consolidate power and before you know it, we'll have a monarchy again.
Speaker 2:Okay, Cato, another figure of Roman liberty, opponent of Julius Caesar, Brutus sentinel, is another on guard. Be on guard against threats to your liberty. So that's the positive reason. It's not about me, it's about the ideas and I'm going to signal something about my point of view by the name I choose, and they're all versions of pro-liberty, Republican liberty. The kind of negative, defensive reason is this is controversial. There are powerful people in favor of the Constitution George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, the two most famous people in America, the two most famous Americans in the world, are at the constitutional convention. They're in favor of ratification and who knows who their friends are in the very States. So partly for defensive reasons, Okay, so Hamilton goes along with this Publius, and then he's a PR genius in the way he chooses the name for this, Because, really quickly the anti-ederalists were not a collection right.
Speaker 1:These are just people who are writing, as opposed to the Federalists who. This is an organized movement, organized thing that they're doing.
Speaker 2:That's right. So Hamilton the PR genius says we're going to have a set of people writing, very smart, very experienced people. We're going to write under one name, publius Roman Liberty, and we're going to give a name to this as a book. Right, the Federalist Now we more popularly call it. It's been called this for a long time the Federalist Papers, because they come out one at a time. He publishes the first volume, essays, one through 37, our first volume, and then eventually it's reprinted. And, by the way, because he's got a Virginian involved, james Madison, it gets reprinted by a guy in Virginia. What's his name again? Oh yeah, what's his name again? Oh yeah, washington. Behind the scenes, george Washington is reprinting the book version of the Federalist to shape the Virginia ratification debate. So the PR genius is to claim this name, the Federalist.
Speaker 2:And then the opponents of the Constitution's people start to call him the Anti-Federalist. Well, if you're trying to sell something, package something, win a debate, do you want to be called anti? Well, maybe you do, but it's not really. It's like what you know. It's not positive. And they didn't choose the name, the opponents of the Constitution. They got stuck with this name Anti-Federalist.
Speaker 2:And why does Hamilton choose the Federalist Because the critics who are out there first Cato, federal Farmer Brutus. They're saying, under the guise of a federal republic, we're going to get some kind of monarchy or aristocracy. This is a bad idea. It's a consolidated government. It's not a real federal republic. Hamilton sees that they've got a PR problem because it is a complicated constitution. It does have this powerful Senate. It does have this powerful single executive, neither of them directly elected by the people. It does have an independent judicial branch, not directly elected by the people.
Speaker 2:Hamilton seizes on the weak point and makes it a strong point. We are the Federalists, we have the proper understanding of what a Federal Republic is and these critics don't know what they're talking about. The only way to survive as a union which we already have and a Federal Republic which we supposedly already have the articles is to have a more organized, which we supposedly already have. The article is to have a more organized Federal Republic. And the big minds of federalism, especially Montesquieu, tell us this is what you need. You need a real government in the center as well as real governments in the member republics of your Federal Republic. So we are going to stand for something positive and we have the true understanding of what federalism is, and it's a federal republic that's a real, with a real government in the middle of it no-transcript.
Speaker 2:So, following on the idea of the title, the opening essays are about America as a union of republics, and this is a good thing, and we are at risk of losing it. The government we have under the articles is too weak. It's almost non-existent. It doesn't have powers. We're playing games here, people. We claim to have a union, we claim to be America and Americans and we're throwing it all away. So the real understanding of the union and what it really calls for is to not just amend the Articles. There's no there there. We must replace it. That's why these great patriots came together in the Constitutional Convention. What is a real federal republic? It's a government that makes a strong enough union to be a real union, and that means a real government at the center. Now the debate in the opening essays into not just the teens but the 20s is this is Republican. The real meaning of federalism and a federation of republics is to have a stronger government at the center. But it's not the only government, and this is all republicanism. We writing as Publius they don't know, people don't know it's plural Publius. I'm a republican right. And having a real federal republic government and then member republics with their governments, that's the real deal and, by the way, we've got the big brains. So I mentioned Montesquieu, right? So they're citing Montesquieu and they're also citing Blackstone. You know English law and constitutionalism. But now you mentioned other big themes.
Speaker 2:You're going to do separate episodes on Federalist number 10, on Federalist number 51. Both of those we know happen to be written by James Madison. We forget some other ones. I'm going to mention Federalist no 9, which sets up no 10, on federalism or the Federal Republic and citing Montesquieu. Basically what they're saying.
Speaker 2:The Anti-Federalists don't know what they're talking about. They mentioned Montesquieu all republics have to be small. They didn't read the whole book they're talking about. They mentioned Montesquieu all republics have to be small. They didn't read the whole book. They didn't do their homework. I've I Publius, have read the whole Montesquieu book and here's the passage in Montesquieu they don't want to talk about where Montesquieu says a federal republic has got to have a real government in the center, it's got to have a strong government in the center and that's good for everybody. You have liberty out in the member republics and you have liberty protected by having a strong enough government center. Because Montesquieu says it's a dangerous world out there and you've got internal sources of disorder and you've got external threats to liberty, republics in a dangerous world filled with monarchies and authoritarian governments and empires and despots and blah, blah, blah. So we, publius, can claim Montesquieu as our great authority and we are doing what needs to be done to sustain Republican government and Republican liberty.
Speaker 2:Then, moving on, you're going to talk more about this. Federer's 51 talks about separation of powers. One talks about separation of powers. There's dozens on, sort of from the 40s onward to the 80s commentary on the three separate branches and our complex constitutionalism. So this is why we'll do a separate episode on this later. This is why the Federalist is still read and cited by lawyers and judges, especially federal judges, today. But I want to finish with larger themes that might be overlooked. Again, montesquieu, big brains, blackstone, big legal brain, is being cited by Publius because this is a book project from the very beginning and it ends up having 85 essays in it and the large idea of that is America deserves a government worthy of our ideals and ambitions. So, to use a popular phrase, the Constitution will make America great.
Speaker 2:And America deserves to be great, america deserves to succeed. And we are in risk of collapsing, the union collapsing, our experiment in Republican liberty collapsing. So if you read the Federalist, federalist number one, hamilton opens by placing it's sort of like the opening of the Declaration of Independence At stake in America. And this question of revolution is more than America right, these are universal principles. Well, hamilton, writing to the people of New York in October of 1787, publius, federalist number one, says this is about us, but at stake here. Here's a quotation.
Speaker 2:It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country to decide, by their conduct and example, the important question whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they're forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force. At stake here is republicanism and liberty, and ordered liberty in the world. So the Constitution will make America great. That's the big theme, I think, of the Federalist, and great as republican, free but ordered liberty. And then one last thought. This would not have been clear at the time. We can reflect on it later. It eventually becomes known that these are three authors coming together as Publius. And what happens in the decade after this is a split. Madison goes one way politically, hamilton goes another way. John Jay basically with Hamilton. But we can look back and say this is a very American thing Three very smart people who, it turns out some differences come together as one voice.
Speaker 2:Scholars like to talk about oh who wrote this essay in the Federalist and who wrote that? And see the differences between them. And I think the large argument is the obvious argument. It hangs together. They stick together through a plan of 85 essays, most written by Hamilton, then about a third written by Madison and then a few by Jay. But it all sticks together and hangs together so much so I'll finish with this point.
Speaker 2:Decades later, when James Madison and Thomas Jefferson are setting the curriculum for the new University of Virginia, the required curriculum, one of the books they list required the Federalist, even though Jefferson knows Hamilton had written quite a lot of it. Jefferson didn't know that Hamilton had wrote most of it. I think he doesn't know right. But it's an American unity of diverse voices coming together to make a big, important argument and it's so important that Madison and Jefferson are going to put it on the required reading list. So, in reflection, it wasn't evident at the time. We can say, boy, this is crucial for our founding, our constitutionalism, and it's got this additional lesson to it. To e pluribus unum, to diversity argument, some degree of unity, it's possible.
Speaker 1:Dr Crease, I'm going to put you on the spot because you are the founding director of the School of Civic and Economic Law and Leadership and you are now our director of the Center for American Civics. One of the, I think, cooler things that we have is something called the civics classic collection and we have a copy of the Federalist paper and I will, for our listeners, link this because there is a video. Can you tell me a little bit about this copy of the Federalist paper that is actually in ASU's library?
Speaker 2:Yes, this was an initiative from President Crow of the President of Arizona State University at the time.
Speaker 2:We got a supplemental amount of money from the state legislature a one-time supplemental amount and he suggested that the school should undertake a project with the library of the whole university to collect some important documents, books on the themes of civic thought and economic thought and leadership, and the most important one I wanted to try and find and it did cost some money but it was. These are this is, presidents and vice presidents of the universities supervising this whole project. Wouldn't it be great for a public university to have an original copy of the Federalist? So this was published in 1788. It's one of the editions that was published, volume one and volume two together as one whole collection, essays one through 85. And I'll just finish. We could talk more about it. I'll just finish with this thought it's the great thing about America and it fits with Alexander Hamilton and the musical right Scrappy up from nothing. I'm here and I'm not Hamilton and the musical right Scrappy up from nothing. I'm here and I'm not throwing away my shot, right?
Speaker 2:If you look at this 1788 edition of the Federalist, it looks like a cheap paperback. It's got leather binding that's the cheapest leather. So now, 200 plus years later, it's falling to pieces. It's small, so it's not a big grand thing, because it's like we got to get this out into people's hands. We don't have a lot of money, we've got serious practical challenges here, but we've got a book and we're going to print it as cheap as possible, pack a lot of words on each page and get it out there. So the paper is cheap. It's not in good shape that way. The leather binding is all falling apart, but there it is and you think, oh, my goodness, these scrappy Americans making a big set of arguments in an organized way. It's quite a thing.
Speaker 1:It is really cool and, again, for our listeners, we have a video. Our library is incredible. There are really cool things and I remember the first time I got to go in and I got to see like Washington's farewell address and Seneca Falls and like Wealth of Nations, like all this stuff is just really real cool. So thank you for letting me put you on the spot. I just I think it's such a unique and cool thing for the Arizona State University to have because it is so important. So, Dr Grace, as always, thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Liz.
