Category Archives: Federalist Papers

The year is 1787. America is a fledgling confederation of 13 colonies. A new Constitution has been written in Philadelphia, to replace the Articles of Confederation. Do you think that this new constitution should become the supreme law of the land? Vote: YES or NO The Federalists want you to vote yes. As America roils with intense debate on this fateful issue, a series of essays begin to appear in three New York newspapers, written by the mysterious persona Publius. These essays urge the American people to ratify the constitution, explaining and defending it in detail. After their debut in New York, the essays subsequently appeared in newspapers across the nation. We know today that Publius was actually three different people: Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison. Their painstaking efforts to explain and promote the United States Constitution have become a primary source for the interpretation and understanding of the highest law of the United States of America. Thomas Jefferson called the Federalist Papers the "best commentary on the principles of government which ever was written." They are available in their entirety on this site, as 85 separate audio narrations. All together, these narrations comprise 20 hours 30 minutes of audio, and total 602.1 MB.