Publisher's Synopsis
FEDERALIST No. 1General IntroductionFor the Independent Journal. Saturday, October 27, 1787HAMILTONTo the People of the State of New York: AFTER an unequivocal experience of the inefficacy of the subsistingfederal government, you are called upon to deliberate on a newConstitution for the United States of America. The subject speaks itsown importance; comprehending in its consequences nothing less than theexistence of the UNION, the safety and welfare of the parts of which itis composed, the fate of an empire in many respects the most interestingin the world. It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have beenreserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are reallycapable or not of establishing good government from reflection andchoice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for theirpolitical constitutions on accident and force. If there be any truthin the remark, the crisis at which we are arrived may with propriety beregarded as the era in which that decision is to be made; and a wrongelection of the part we shall act may, in this view, deserve to beconsidered as the general misfortune of mankind.This idea will add the inducements of philanthropy to those ofpatriotism, to heighten the solicitude which all considerate and goodmen must feel for the event. Happy will it be if our choice should bedirected by a judicious estimate of our true interests, unperplexed andunbiased by considerations not connected with the public good. But thisis a thing more ardently to be wished than seriously to be expected. Theplan offered to our deliberations affects too many particular interests, innovates upon too many local institutions, not to involve in itsdiscussion a variety of objects foreign to its merits, and of views, passions and prejudices little favorable to the discovery of truth.Among the most formidable of the obstacles which the new Constitutionwill have to encounter may readily be distinguished the obvious interestof a certain class of men in every State to resist all changes whichmay hazard a diminution of the power, emolument, and consequence ofthe offices they hold under the State establishments; and the pervertedambition of another class of men, who will either hope to aggrandizethemselves by the confusions of their country, or will flatterthemselves with fairer prospects of elevation from the subdivision ofthe empire into several partial confederacies than from its union underone governm
