during Hamilton's military career, upon the defects of the
Articles of Confederation and of the finances of the
Confederation. Hamilton contributed but little to the actual
structure of the new Constitution, but as a debater he fought
magnificently and triumphantly for its adoption by the Convention
of the State of New York in 1788. Together with Jay and Madison
he defended the fundamental principles of the Federal Union in
the remarkable series of papers known as the "Federalist." These
eighty-five papers, appearing over the signature "Publius" in two
New York newspapers between October, 1787, and April, 1788, owed
their conception largely to Hamilton, who wrote more than half of
them himself. In manner they are not unlike the substantial Whig
literature of England, and in political theory they have little
in common with the Revolutionary literature which we have been
considering. The reasoning is close, the style vigorous but
neither warmed by passion nor colored by the individual emotions
of the author. The "Federalist" remains a classic example of the
civic quality of our post-Revolutionary American political
writing, broadly social in its outlook, well informed as to the
past, confident--but not reckless--of the future. Many Americans
still read it who would be shocked by Tom Paine and bored with
Edmund Burke. It has none of the literary genius of either of
those writers, but its formative influence upon successive
generations of political thinking has been steadying and sound.

In fact, our citizen literature cannot be understood aright if
one fails to observe that its effect has often turned, not upon
mere verbal skill, but upon the weight of character behind the
words. Thus the grave and reserved George Washington says of the
Constitution of 1787: "Let us raise a standard to which the wise