This book reconnects The Federalist Papers to the study of American politics and political development, arguing that the papers contain previously unrecognized theory of institutional power, a theory that enlarges and refines the contribution of the papers to political theory, but also reconnects the papers to the study of American politics.
This book reconnects The Federalist Papers to the study of American politics and political development, arguing that the papers contain previously unrecognized theory of institutional power, a theory that enlarges and refines the contribution of the papers to political theory, but also reconnects the papers to the study of American politics.
Classic Books Library presents this brand new edition of “The Federalist Papers”, a collection of separate essays and articles compiled in 1788 by Alexander Hamilton. Following the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776, the governing doctrines and policies of the States lacked cohesion. “The Federalist”, as it was previously known, was constructed by American statesman Alexander Hamilton, and was intended to catalyse the ratification of the United States Constitution. Hamilton recruited fellow statesmen James Madison Jr., and John Jay to write papers for the compendium, and the three are known as some of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Alexander Hamilton (c. 1755–1804) was an American lawyer, journalist and highly influential government official. He also served as a Senior Officer in the Army between 1799-1800 and founded the Federalist Party, the system that governed the nation’s finances. His contributions to the Constitution and leadership made a significant and lasting impact on the early development of the nation of the United States.
The United States has had not one, but two Foundings. The Constitution produced by the Second Founding came to be only after a vociferous battle between Federalists and Anti-Federalists. The Federalists favored a relatively powerful central government, while the Anti-Federalists distrusted the concentration of power in one place and advocated the preservation of sovereignty in the states as crucibles of post-revolutionary republicanism -- the legacy of the First Founding. This philosophical cleavage has been at the heart of practically every major political conflict in U.S. history, and lives on today in debates between modern liberals and conservatives. In The Lovers' Quarrel, Elvin T. Lim presents a systematic and innovative analysis of this perennial struggle. The framers of the second Constitution, the Federalists, were not operating in an ideational or institutional vacuum; rather, the document they drafted and ratified was designed to remedy the perceived flaws of the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union. To decouple the Two Foundings is to appreciate that there is no such thing as "original meaning," only original dissent. Because the Anti-Federalists insisted that prior and democratically sanctioned understandings of federalism and union had to be negotiated and partially grafted onto the new Constitution, the Constitution's Articles and the Bill of Rights do not cohere as well together as has conventionally been thought. Rather, they represent two antithetical orientations toward power, liberty, and republicanism. The altercation over the necessity of the Second Founding generated coherent and self-contained philosophies that would become the core of American political thought, reproduced and transmitted across two centuries, whether the victors were the neo-Federalists (such as during the Civil War and the New Deal) or the neo-Anti-Federalists (such as during the Jacksonian era and the Reagan Revolution). The Second Founding -- the sole "founding" that we generally speak of -- would become a template for the unique, prototypically American species of politics and political debate. Because of it, American political development occurs only after the political entrepreneurs of each generation lock horns in a Lovers' Quarrel about the principles of one of the Two Foundings, and succeed in justifying and forging a durable expansion or contraction of federal authority.
A group of preeminent political and constitutional scholars, including Edward Banfield and William Kristol, offer fresh perspectives on The Federalist Papers' ideals, arguments, and enduring effects on American political life.
Thisbook is distinctive because it will be a political science oriented introduction to The Federalist Papers. As most of the editions have introductions by historians, and some of them quite good, there is no readily available edition with a political science focus. Such a focus would not ignore the historical dimensions of the founding and that particular era, but would supplement this historical background with a concentration on the key questions political scientists tend to ask when reading and teaching The Federalist Papers. Questions of power, separation, blending, federalism, and structural design and how they impact the practice of government, questions we political scientists ask, will be the central feature of this edition. The primary audience for this edition would be courses in American Political Thought, American Government (most of which include components of the Federalist Papers) plus courses on the Presidency, Congress, The Judiciary, and Federalism.
This book reconnects The Federalist Papers to the study of American politics and political development, arguing that the papers contain previously unrecognized theory of institutional power, a theory that enlarges and refines the contribution of the papers to political theory, but also reconnects the papers to the study of American politics.
The Madisonian approach to institutional design, as set forth in The Federalist Papers, is examined from the point of view of leading theorists of the "public choice" school who see themselves as the political heirs of that earlier legacy. ." . . the most ambitious attempt to date to reread The Federalist in the light of modern social science." - Publius
The development of American federalism is a story of contested sovereignty, and those contests are fundamentally shaped by the evolving structures, relationships, and understandings of the constitutional order. This dissertation seeks to show how the American federal system is both cause and effect of political development. Even as it structures legal and political contestation, American federalism is shaped—even redefined—by such contestation. Central to the account of American federalism that I advance are two related arguments about the nature of the federal system. The first is that the Constitution’s definition of the state-federal relationship is structurally underdeterminate: while the Constitution constrains the set of permissible state-federal relationships, it fixes no single definition. Rather than establish a determinate division of state and national powers, the Constitution establishes a range of parameters for their relationship and sets forth the legal and political processes through which that relationship is contested, defined, and revised. As a result, the American federal system both shapes and is shaped by constitutionally structured politics. Developing an implication of this argument, the second argument holds that notions and definitions of sovereignty are structured relationally. Articulations of national power reciprocally define a category of state powers, just as invocation of local concerns over which states have authority reciprocally define national concerns over which the national government has authority. On this account federalism is both an independent and a dependent variable, an approach that shifts our focus from federalism and American political development to federalism in American political development. By foregrounding the underdeterminacy of the federal system and interrogating the constitutional construction it anticipates, we can glimpse the intertwined contingency and continuity of American constitutional development. This dissertation is broadly divided into two parts—the first theoretical, the second developmental—each of which consists of two components. The resulting four chapters constitute the core of the project. The theoretical chapters (Chapters One and Two) provide a framework for understanding the federal system both in the general context of the American Constitution and, more specifically, in contrast with the separation of powers. This framework is fundamentally structured by the underdeterminate constitutional division of state and national powers and the consequent need for constitutional construction of the state-federal relationship. The developmental chapters (Chapters Three and Four) operationalize the theoretical framework developed in the first two chapters in two different domains: constitutional jurisprudence and a discrete episode of the political construction of the state-federal relationship. Taken together, these chapters are intended to illustrate the central argument of the preceding chapters: that the constitutional design of the federal system anticipates development and that this development is inflected by the institutional logics of the principal institutions of American government. The dissertation concludes with a brief reflection on the two conceptual cornerstones of the analysis presented in the preceding chapters: constitutional construction and constitutional logics.
Though Americans rarely appreciate it, federalism has profoundly shaped their nation’s past, present, and future. Federalism—the division of government authority between the national government and the states—affects the prosperity, security, and daily life of every American. In this nuanced and comprehensive overview, David Brian Robertson shows that past choices shape present circumstances, and that a deep understanding of American government, public policy, political processes, and society requires an understanding of the key steps in federalism’s evolution in American history. The most spectacular political conflicts in American history have been fought on the battlefield of federalism, including states’ rights to leave the union, government power to regulate business, and responses to the problems of race, poverty, pollution, abortion, and gay rights. Federalism helped fragment American politics, encourage innovation, foster the American market economy, and place hurdles in the way of efforts to mitigate the consequences of economic change. Federalism helped construct the path of American political development. Federalism and the Making of America is a sorely needed text that treats the politics of federalism systematically and accessibly, making it indispensible to all students and scholars of American politics. Chosen as one of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2012.
