The Federalist Papers






FEDERALIST. No. 1

General Introduction
For the Independent Journal.

HAMILTON

To the People of the State of New York:
AFTER an unequivocal experience of the inefficacy of the
subsisting federal government, you are called upon to deliberate on
a new Constitution for the United States of America. The subject
speaks its own importance; comprehending in its consequences
nothing less than the existence of the UNION, the safety and welfare
of the parts of which it is composed, the fate of an empire in many
respects the most interesting in the world. It has been frequently
remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this
country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important
question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of
establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether
they are forever destined to depend for their political
constitutions on accident and force. If there be any truth in the
remark, the crisis at which we are arrived may with propriety be
regarded as the era in which that decision is to be made; and a