About The Founding Reader

Using the site

Read any document straight through, or start with a question in Debates. How much power should the federal government have? Would the presidency become an elective monarchy? Why did some writers insist on a bill of rights? Each debate page gathers the relevant passages and links to the complete documents.

The page on judicial independence, for example, pairs Article III with Hamilton’s defense of independent courts and Brutus’s warning that judges beyond correction would enlarge federal power. A note explains how the readings relate: whether one answers the other directly, or both take up the same question independently.

What’s here

All 85 Federalist essays, 44 writings against ratification (Brutus, the Federal Farmer, and Cato complete), the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. Three writings on slavery from outside the convention are included as well, among them a 1788 petition from free Black residents of Boston. None of the three is a ratification document; the debate on slavery reads them against the Constitution’s compromises.

The argument

In September 1787 the Philadelphia convention sent its work to the states. The Constitution would take effect only if conventions in nine states approved it, so the decision belonged to the public, and the fight ran through the newspapers under Roman pen names. Publius, the shared signature of Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, wrote for adoption; Brutus, Cato, and the Federal Farmer wrote against it.

Ratification was close. Massachusetts approved by 187 votes to 168, and only after its convention attached a list of recommended amendments, a device most later states copied. Those amendments went to the First Congress in 1789, and ten of the twelve it proposed were ratified in 1791 as the Bill of Rights. The losing side never got the second convention it wanted, but much of what it demanded became constitutional text.

Sources

Each document names the edition it follows and explains how its text was handled. Sources and methodology covers the transcription checks and their limits. Questions, corrections, and suggestions: contact@foundingreader.com.