If the analogy of the previous openings is allowed as evidence, it is at one of those two points, then, that we should conclude that a new writer had begun.

With these facts to work upon, an examination of the five essays, Nos. 47 to 51, shows them to be a discussion of the apportionment of the powers of government among the three departments. The general extent of these powers had been already discussed in the immediately preceding numbers, and a more minute survey of their relation to the three departments is the subject of the remaining essays almost to the end. They can, therefore, be considered as belonging to either. From Madison himself, however, we get a clew, for in No. 41 he distinctly assigns them to the second series.' But whether this is accepted as proof, an examination of the five forces the inference that they were all written by one

man.

The authorship of Nos. 37 to 48 is given to Madison by every known list, so it is difficult to avoid concluding that the apparent break between Nos. 46 and 47 merely represent the beginning of a new subject by the same pen, and not a change of writer. Furthermore we have the excellent authority of James Kent for the statement that "Mr. Hamilton told me that Mr. Madison wrote 48 and 49, or from Pa. 101 to 112 of Vol. 2d." No. 50 was almost surely written by the

"The constitution proposed by the convention may be considered under two general points of view. The First relates to the sum or quantity of power which it vests in the government, including the restraints imposed on the states. The Second, to the particular structure of the government, and the distribution of this power, among its several branches.

"Under the first view of the subject two important questions arise: 1. Whether any part of the powers transferred to the general government be unnecessary or improper? 2. Whether the entire mass of them be dangerous to the portion of jurisdiction left in the several states?"— Opening paragraphs of No. 41.

2 One curious fact, to which attention has never been called, is that Taylor, in his "New View of the Constitution (1823)" divides the authorship at No. 46, giving No. 47 and all that follow to Hamilton. Yet though he was the friend and correspondent of Madison, and though this book was a well-known one to the latter, neither publicly nor privately, so far as is known, did Madison correct Taylor's conclusion.

same hand which penned No. 49, and No. 51 was certainly composed by the writer of No. 50. In addition these essays discuss the powers from the purely historical and theoretical standpoint, views for which Madison had strong predilections. A candid survey of the facts, therefore, will, we think, lead every unbiased student to assign them to one author, and the balance of evidence certainly points to James Madison.'

But the same internal evidence shows that with No. 52, a minute and homogeneous examination of the structure of the government is begun, in which the three departments are analyzed point by point. That one man wrote Nos. 52 to 58, that a second contributed Nos. 59 to 61, that then the original writer resumed his work in Nos. 62 and 63, and that finally the task was again assumed by the second writer, and completed by him, the essays themselves give no evidence. With the exception of the insertion of one essay (No. 64, on the treaty making power of the Senate, which was given to Jay, because of his diplomatic experience), it is difficult to resist the conviction that the whole remainder of the letters are the work of one writer and one prone to take the practical rather than the theoretical view of things.

1 One rather singular piece of evidence contradictory to the above conclusion is furnished by the comparative length of the different essays. When examining in the newspapers the original text of The Federalist my attention was called to the fact that the letters contributed by Hamilton rarely overran a column and a half, while those by Madison seldom filled less than three columns. I therefore carefully estimated the lengths of each man's work, to find that the average length of the fifty essays unquestionably written by Hamilton is 1800 words; of those certainly written by Madison, 3000 words. Madison wrote in the undoubted numbers (No. 10, 14, 37-46,) but two essays of less than 2300 words, and Hamilton but once wrote one of 3000 words, except in the last five, when an evident attempt was made to finish the series up quickly. Testing Nos. 49 to 58 and Nos. 62 and 63, the average length is found to be 1800 words. No. 47 contains 2700 words; No. 48, 1800; No. 49, 1600 words; No. 50, 1100 words; No. 51, 1800 words; No. 52, 1700 words. It is needless to add, to anyone who has studied the writings of the two men, that the differences between the two styles in this very respect is most noticeable. Madison is wordy and seems to have little ability to express an idea with brevity. Hamilton is direct and compact to an extent which made him a famous draftsman in his day, and few men have ever equaled him in his power of stating a thing tersely.

Examining Nos. 52 to 58 and 62 and 63, in detail, we find several small facts which throw light on the question of authorship. In Nos. 52, 56, 57, 58, and 63, are citations of examples in English history, like references being numerous in many of Hamilton's essays, but only two passing references to Great Britain are to be found in any of those written by Madison' The same difference is noticeable in the papers prepared by the two writers for use in the federal convention-Hamilton's "Brief" of his speech, and Madison's "Notes," the first citing British example frequently, the latter not once.2

In Nos. 53, 54, and 56, are paragraphs discussing taxation, and the first and last of these letters also discuss the militia, both of which subjects Hamilton had familiarized himself with, and which he had made his own topics in the earlier essays.

No. 54 is a discussion of slave representation, written nominally from the Southern point of view, but really from the Northern. Not once did Madison allude to this famous clause in the Virginia convention, but Hamilton spoke a résumé of this essay in that of New York. The cause for this is obvious: the "federal number" needed no defense in Virginia; in New York, the contrary was true. But an even greater reason for Hamilton's taking up this particular point was the fact that on February 7, 1788, there had appeared in the New York Journal a letter entitled "The Expositor," savagely attacking the slave compromise and charging of Hamilton himself that "The delegate from this state acceded to it alone on the part of this state," and adding, “I cannot help thinking it a most daring insult offered to the freemen and freeholders of this State, besides being an unparalleled departure from his duties to this state as well as to the United States." Necessarily this attack could not

'I omit here the résumé in No. 47, because from what has already been shown, this number cannot be positively ascribed to Madison. 2 In Madison's supplementary notes, prepared for use in the Virginia convention, he cites British example, but this was after The Federalist had called his attention to the value of the material.

be disregarded, and the impersonal reply to it in No. 54 was published exactly one week later, on February 14. It seems almost conclusive under these circumstances that it was written by Hamilton. Another opinion in this number furthers this probability. The writer praises the "federal number," on the ground that it introduces through the slave a partial representation of property. This was a favorite idea of Hamilton's, for which he had spoken in the federal convention, and for which he praised this clause in one of his speeches in the New York convention. To this idea of property representation Madison was absolutely opposed.

In No. 52 the writer is in doubt as to the term of office of the colonial assembly of Virginia before the Revolution; a fact so notorious in that state that it could not have been unknown to Madison.

In No. 63 the writer praises the British House of Lords; something Madison would not have done. Hamilton, on the contrary, had been most open in his admiration of the British government, and so admired this particular branch of it that he had but just modeled the Senate in his proposed constitution as closely upon it as he could. This essay, too, devoted a paragraph to the Senate of Maryland, which Hamilton had already noticed with some attention in his "great" speech in the federal convention.

In Nos. 54 and 57 the mention of local circumstances, of New York state, of New York city, and of Albany county, points to the knowledge of Hamilton rather than to that of Madison.

Finally and most conclusive, in the republication in 1788 of the letters in book form, Hamilton inserted in the newspaper text of No. 56 a paragraph relating to military affairs, and as he was scrupulous, in correcting the numbers not written by himself, to limit his change to merely verbal improvements, this addition amounts to an assertion of authorship within two months of its writing. Strangely enough, in the edition of 1818 in which "the

numbers written by Mr. Madison" were "corrected by himself," this insertion of Hamilton's was retained.

From the preceding facts, in which, so far as possible, all evidence that is of value has been included, without regard to whether it told for or against a particular man, it appears that Madison probably wrote Nos. 49 to 51, and Hamilton Nos. 52 to 58 and Nos. 62, 63, of those essays of which we find their testimony in direct contradiction. Accordingly they are in this edition assigned as above, but since the evidence cannot be termed conclusive, a question mark has been placed before the name. attached to each disputed number.

But to whomever the disputed numbers are assigned, or whether they are left in doubt, the value and power of The Federalist were due to its undertaker, and not to his assistants. It is asserted that Hamilton requested the insertion of the sentence in the preface of the edition of 1802 to the effect that the contributions of Madison and Jay were "not unequal in merit to those which are solely from the pen of General Hamilton." In this opinion Hamilton was probably singular, for the few essays of Jay, and Madison's dry-bones on long dead confederacies, and his "theoretic " arguments, would have long since been forgotten, but for their inclusion in the essays written by Hamilton. No one who has carefully read the essays can fail to agree with George Ticknor Curtis when he asserted that "it was from [Hamilton] that The Federalist derived the weight and the power which commanded the careful attention of the country,” and with the Hon. James Bryce, when he wrote: "Of these writers Hamilton must be deemed the leading spirit, not merely because he wrote by far the larger number of letters, but because his mind was more independent and more commanding than Madison's."

The Federalist has been many times reprinted, and an elaborate catalogue of these editions is given in Ford's "Bibliography and Reference List of the History and