The Federalist Papers

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-- AKA, The Federalist . . .

circa 1789 and the Constitutional Convention, it's 85 essays by Alexander Hamiliton, James Madison, and John Jay.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Jay

It's available online, with some gloss, notes, commentary. Yale Law School lists it.

In a nutshell, its an argument for the adoption of the US Constitution and a federal govt.

Ample discussion of the Second Amendment. No. 29 is the classic, but also 46 and 78.

You'd need to Google, do a bit of searching.

But you should put this on your reading list . . . You know, get off line and get a life?

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Very good reading, indeed. Its a little helpful to have a foreword by a constitutional scholar that can help give some context.Next is to get a copy of the Anti-federalist Papers, actually a collection of essays and speeches by people who were opposed.Just compare what theAnti-federalists warned about tothe federal gov't we have today.

Also, just keep in mind that the Federalist Paperswere a sales pitch. They wereletters-to-the-editordesigned to persuade people to go along with the constitution.


I've not read the original work, and can only imperfectly remember the quote, but by the 1870's, the scheme of gov't pitched by the Federalist was open to the followingcriticism by a judge named Lysander Spooner, "The Consitution either authorizedsuch government as we have, or was powerless to stop it."

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The whole lot of them are here: http://federali.st/