Chris Bates and Dr. Brent Gilchrist, Political Science

Considered by many to be the seminal work in American political theory, The Federalist has long stood as one of the most important commentaries on the American Constitution and constitutional system. Despite the work’s near canonical status, however, a number of authors have questioned its value as an instrument for understanding and interpreting the Constitution. One of the most important challenges to The Federalist’s interpretive value comes from Douglass Adair’s and Alpheus Thomas Mason’s split personality thesis, which claims that Hamilton’s and Madison’s respective papers espouse fundamentally different and even contradictory views. If true, the split personality thesis poses significant challenges for The Federalist’s usefulness in understanding the Constitution, for an internally contradictory and incoherent work can do only little to clarify answers to key constitutional questions.

For my project, I examined the extent to which the inconsistencies between Hamilton’s and Madison’s papers affect The Federalist’s value in constitutional interpretation. In doing so, I explored two questions. First, are there, as some claim, substantial, substantive inconsistencies between Hamilton’s and Madison’s respective Federalist papers? Second, to what extent do these inconsistencies affect The Federalist’s usefulness as an instrument for better understanding the Constitution? My work involved a thorough reading and rereading of The Federalist, with an eye towards finding topics on which Hamilton and Madison diverge. I used as the basis of my examination the three seminal articles on The Federalist’s supposedly split personality: Douglass Adair’s “The Authorship of the Disputed Federalist Papers: Part II,” Alpheus Thomas Mason’s “The Federalist—A Split Personlity,” and George Carey’s “Publius: A Split Personality?” Each of these authors identify specific topics on which they believe Hamilton’s and Madison’s papers disagree. As I carefully read and reread The Federalist, I both evaluated these purported differences and looked for other areas of disagreement these authors overlooked.

I found substantive inconsistencies between Hamilton’s and Madison’s papers on two issues only: the nature of the proper dividing line between the national and state governments and the power orientation of the national government, that is, the degree to which the national government faces meaningful restraints on its powers to protect and further the public interest. On all other purported areas of disagreement, I found, Hamilton’s and Madison’s papers could be largely reconciled. Yet even on those two issues on which I found Hamilton and Madison differ significantly, I found that the authors’ inconsistencies stem not from overt contradictions, but rather from their different focuses in approaching these issues. Hamilton, with his continual focus on ensuring the national government has sufficient power to accomplish its ends and seeming lack of concern with potential national government encroachments on the states, may be seen to implicitly support an expansive, nationalist reading of the Constitution that grants the national government every power that may at sometime become necessary to accomplish its objects, including the power to forcibly intervene in state affairs. Madison, on the other hand, with his apparent concern for protecting the states against unwarranted national government intrusions and focus on ensuring that the national government’s powers extend only as far as necessary, implicitly supports a more restrained, state-centric reading of the Constitution that prescribes the national government’s powers to within certain limits and sees a very definite division of powers between the national and state authorities. Thus, I concluded, The Federalist’s value as an instrument for understanding the Constitution stands intact, with the caveat that one must be careful in looking to these essays for clear answers regarding the constitutional division of powers and the proper limits on the national government’s powers.

Beyond the specific issues of the division of powers and power orientation of the national government, I also considered a broader implication of the split in The Federalist’s personality. The split, be it small or large, I argued, shows that Hamilton and Madison each make an individual, unique contribution to the person we know as “Publius,” the pen name under which Hamilton and Madison both wrote. Publius is not Hamilton alone, nor is he Madison alone. Rather, he is both, working together to support ratification of the new Constitution despite differing perspectives and personal philosophies. As a result, one must be careful always to consider both Hamilton and Madison when using The Federalist in constitutional interpretation. To ignore Hamilton’s or Madison’s comments on a particular issue is to gain only an incomplete picture of what Publius has to say on that issue. One must also be careful to avoid improperly reading Hamilton into Madison’s essays or vice versa and to consider each author on his own merits. To allow Hamilton to color one’s understanding of Madison’s essays (or vice versa) is again to miss an important part of what Publius has to say because it involves losing some of Hamilton’s or Madison’s special contribution to Publius. It is Hamilton and Madison together as one who constitute Publius, not each individually. To the extent, then, that the split in Publius’s personality helps us recognize the importance of considering both Hamilton’s and Madison’s essays on their own merits when using The Federalist to understand the Constitution, I argued, rather than diminishing The Federalist’s interpretive value, Publius’s split personality actually enhances it.

The outcome of this project was a significant research paper, my honors thesis. As per honors program instructions, several copies were printed, one of which can be found in the BYU library and another of which is in the political science department office.

Overall, I found this to be an extraordinarily difficult yet worthwhile project. I became very well acquainted with The Federalist, one of the nation’s most important political texts, and experienced the highs and lows or writing a lengthy, scholarly paper. I was also required to defend my paper before a panel of three professors. This project gave me a taste of what it is like to be a professional researcher: long hours of reading, writing, editing, and responding to feedback. While I cannot say it left me with a desire to pursue a career in academia, it did provide tremendous insight into the type of work an academic career involves.

References

• Adair, Douglass. 1944. The authorship of the disputed Federalist Papers: Part II. William and Mary Quarterly 3d ser., 1 (July): 235-64.
• Mason, Alpheus Thomas. 1952. The Federalist—A split personality. American Historical Review 57 (April): 625-43.
• Carey, George W. 1984. Publius: A split personality? Review of Politics 46 (January): 5-22.