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
Unpacking the Federalist Papers
Dr. Sean Beienberg returns to explore the origin and purpose of the Federalist Papers as persuasive political documents designed to convince New York citizens to ratify the U.S. Constitution. Written primarily by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, these influential essays functioned as op-eds responding to constitutional critics while explaining the document's benefits and protections.
• Originally written as persuasive pieces explicitly aimed at New York state ratification
• Authored by Alexander Hamilton and John Jay (New Yorkers), with James Madison (Virginia) joining to strengthen arguments
• Functioned as responses to critics like "Brutus" who expressed concerns about the proposed Constitution
• Defended the Constitution by agreeing with critics about what good government should look like while arguing that the Constitution achieved those goals
• Advocated for the compromise document rather than the authors' personal preferences
• Targeted New York due to its strategic geographic and economic importance
• Serve today as authoritative explanations of how the Constitution was understood initially
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School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership
Welcome back everyone. Today we have a returning yes, dr Sean Beidenberg, and we're really diving into the Federalist Papers and we have very specific questions. Just because the Federalist Papers itself is such a large topic and I know that, I know I was an AP Gov teacher for a while we dig into the Federalist Papers and as a teacher of AP seniors, the Federalist Papers, they're just kind of written in a different language. So we came up with all of these questions so that you could really take a deep dive in. So today, dr Beinberg, our question is what were the Federalist Papers and why were they written?
Speaker 2:So the Federalist Papers originally were effective at the sort of low level of politics originally, were effective at the sort of low level of politics, basically documents trying to convince the folks in New York specifically to ratify the proposed US Constitution.
Speaker 2:So, as has been and will continue to be discussed over other sessions, there was a serious debate about whether in fact to ratify the United States Constitution and it needed to be ratified by any state that wanted to participate had to ratify it. It would go into effect when a supermajority had ratified it. It would not be binding on any state that did not ratify it. But basically there's a sort of state-by-state campaign to secure ratification and the Federalist Papers were part of a sort of broad debate that was happening in the states about whether in fact the folks should ratify it. And the Federalist Papers are generally regarded as the sort of most definitive and, with perhaps one exception, most sort of thoughtful defense of why one should indeed ratify the Constitution, the Constitution. The one potential alternative is James Wilson, about who there will be an entire section much later in the series was the sort of architect of Pennsylvania's ratification, which was one of the early ones, and he gives a very famous speech where he outlines sort of the main reasons for it. And many of those arguments later get picked up by the three authors of the Federalist, which is John Jay, who's from New York, alexander Hamilton, also from New York, and the two of them solicit the assistance of James Madison, who they know had been one of the most prominent participants in the Constitutional Convention. He'd kept the most sort of thorough notes. He was sort of the almost in-house scholar of the convention. So they pull him on board from Virginia and so at that point they're specifically trying to get New York's ratification through.
Speaker 2:And so these are effectively op-eds. They read as both brilliant political treatises, albeit, as you said, sometimes in some challenging language. But at their core they're effectively a series of op-eds and they're largely in conversation with a critic or a skeptic of this US Constitution. Scholars are unsure exactly who it is. Some names have been proposed that it was one of the members from the New York delegation who left the Constitutional Convention in sort of protest. Others have suggested it was a sort of ally of that person. So there's a scholarly debate on sort of who is the author. But at the very least we know that this author, who went by the pen name, brutus, which obviously recalls the old sort of Roman defenders of a free republic against sort of tyranny. Brutus was a very thoughtful critic and was pretty good at picking out places where potentially this constitution could have some pretty negative effects. And so the Federalist Papers at their core are sort of refutations of critiques being raised by Brutus and other critics who say the Constitution is failing to, wrong, why the Constitution in fact secures the goods that not only the defenders of the Constitution but the critics say are good government.
Speaker 2:So the sort of really really short version that one could say is the Federalist Papers are op-ed pieces to skeptics of the Constitution saying we agree with you what a good government should look like and this is why we think this proposed Constitution achieves it. We agree with and we'll go into these in more detail in subsequent sessions but we agree with you that this should be a broadly decentralized government. We disagree insofar as we think we need to have a few more significant expansions of federal power, but we still fundamentally agree with you that power should be divided. That's part of what we objected to with the British Empire. We agree with you that we don't want to have a monarch. We agree with you that the system should be broadly Republican in the sense of reflecting the preferences of the people. We agree with you that there should be a free judiciary that isn't a tyranny, and so on and so forth.
Speaker 2:So basically, all of these critiques that are made the Federalist general, there's a few places where they get a little snarky and say this is just a dumb argument, but on the whole they're actually quite respectful because there's a serious. There's a serious political conversation. And so there are many places where Madison or Hamilton the two of them end up authoring the bulk of them because John Jay becomes ill where they will basically say we grant the premise of Brutus. They never I don't think they ever cite him by name. Maybe they do at one point, but they'll say, like the person who's getting it and they'll quote them, we'll quote him, but they'll say we grant the premise.
Speaker 2:We just don't think that the constitution actually is guilty of the specific charges that are being made as to why it's bad. On that we agree with what a good government should look like. We just think that it's actually good and we agree with Brutus on what a good government should look like. We just think our constitution actually achieves that and why so largely they're trying to basically refute Brutus and the other skeptics on their own grounds. We agree with you what a good government looks like, and so that's what their sort of purpose was at the time is effectively just laying out the case for the Constitution Again, not the only case being made for it, but arguably the best.
Speaker 2:Certainly and part of that is the consequence of that is that the Federalist Papers and we'll talk more about this later in another podcast, specifically the Federalist Papers also serve as definitive probably overstates it, but perhaps the most authoritative explanation of how people at the time thought of the Constitution and what it would do so particularly for purposes of constitutional jurisprudence, particularly for trying to understand what was the original meaning, what was the original understanding that people sort of thought they were signing on. We'll talk more about that in its own separate session later, but at its core, the Federalist Papers are a series of essays that are a defense of the Constitution from some of its most articulate defenders and pushing back against skeptics of it. And it's worth noting as well, the Federalist Papers are defending the Constitution as written, not necessarily Madison's or Hamilton's personal preferences. In fact, and this is my argument.
Speaker 2:This is not a scholarly consensus. There's a case to be made that in some ways the Constitution ends up being closer to what Roger Sherman wanted it to look like than James Madison in the places where the two of them disagreed. And nonetheless, madison recognizes that his Constitution isn't going to sell. Hamilton recognizes his constitution isn't going to sell. There's a couple spots. They put a thumb on the scale and say it really means this thing which might be a little closer to their own preferences. But they're selling fundamentally the constitution, not their own preferences.
Speaker 1:Can I ask a quick question, Dr Bemberg? Because at the beginning you said it was written to the people of New York, because I think sometimes we suffer from presentism, right, Like, oh, the federalist papers were written and everybody in the colonies you know read them, and I do know that there are some of them that start with to the people of New York. Why?
Speaker 2:is.
Speaker 1:New York so important and why was that kind of the target?
Speaker 2:Right. So again, every state has to sign on. Not every state has to sign on for the Constitution to go into effect, but every state has to sign on if they want to participate. And I think hopefully we'll have time in another one to talk some fun stories about, some stories about that. Some of the states it's not very controversial, some of the states it's pretty close and New York is recognized as one where they in fact think that there are more skeptics of the Constitution or, if not more likely, very plausible, to fail. So that's why they bring in James Madison. They basically pull him in from Virginia to participate in this, because they need the A-team effectively, not the backups.
Speaker 2:So New York is really important. It's not the biggest colony. If you actually look in the final US Constitution when they allocate, well before the enumeration, this state gets this many delegates. This state gets this many delegates, representatives. Excuse me, new York's actually in the middle and so it's not important necessarily in the sense that it's the biggest or most powerful colony. That's Virginia, pennsylvania, massachusetts. But it is geographically central and it is potentially going to vote no and it's toward the end. So the Constitution is at this point, probably going to get the numbers to go into effect just to clear the supermajority. But it's a problem if effectively the middle New York is effectively the geographic middle is not in it and it obviously is, at this point again, not the biggest colony but it's a booming. It's a booming and very central port. And so they're fearful that if they lose New York, that the Constitution, even though it will legally go into effect, that the sort of system will start to splinter and fragment.
Speaker 1:Awesome, and listeners, please join us. Dr Bidenberg is going to do another episode. It'll be episode 40, talking about why the Federalist Papers were so crucial during the Constitutional Tradification. But, dr Bidenberg, as always, thank you so much.
