Based on lectures delivered for the US Constitution's bicentennial. Allen (political science, Michigan State U. ) and Cloonan (government, James Madison U.) counter arguments that the Federalist Papers (1787) are not very accessible or relevant to government today by overviewing issues addressed in the 85 essays and specific principles framing current governance. Appends references to these papers in Supreme Court cases. Lacks an index. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

New York Times Bestseller Editors' Choice —New York Times Book Review "Ricks knocks it out of the park with this jewel of a book. On every page I learned something new. Read it every night if you want to restore your faith in our country." —James Mattis, General, U.S. Marines (ret.) & 26th Secretary of Defense The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and #1 New York Times bestselling author offers a revelatory new book about the founding fathers, examining their educations and, in particular, their devotion to the ancient Greek and Roman classics—and how that influence would shape their ideals and the new American nation. On the morning after the 2016 presidential election, Thomas Ricks awoke with a few questions on his mind: What kind of nation did we now have? Is it what was designed or intended by the nation’s founders? Trying to get as close to the source as he could, Ricks decided to go back and read the philosophy and literature that shaped the founders’ thinking, and the letters they wrote to each other debating these crucial works—among them the Iliad, Plutarch’s Lives, and the works of Xenophon, Epicurus, Aristotle, Cato, and Cicero. For though much attention has been paid the influence of English political philosophers, like John Locke, closer to their own era, the founders were far more immersed in the literature of the ancient world. The first four American presidents came to their classical knowledge differently. Washington absorbed it mainly from the elite culture of his day; Adams from the laws and rhetoric of Rome; Jefferson immersed himself in classical philosophy, especially Epicureanism; and Madison, both a groundbreaking researcher and a deft politician, spent years studying the ancient world like a political scientist. Each of their experiences, and distinctive learning, played an essential role in the formation of the United States. In examining how and what they studied, looking at them in the unusual light of the classical world, Ricks is able to draw arresting and fresh portraits of men we thought we knew. First Principles follows these four members of the Revolutionary generation from their youths to their adult lives, as they grappled with questions of independence, and forming and keeping a new nation. In doing so, Ricks interprets not only the effect of the ancient world on each man, and how that shaped our constitution and government, but offers startling new insights into these legendary leaders.

The world of ancient Greece witnessed some of the most sophisticated and varied experiments with federalism in the pre-modern era. In the volatile interstate environment of Greece, federalism was a creative response to the challenge of establishing regional unity, while at the same time preserving a degree of local autonomy. To reconcile the forces of integration and independence, Greek federal states introduced, for example, the notion of proportional representation, the stratification of legal practice, and a federal grammar of festivals and cults. Federalism in Greek Antiquity provides the first comprehensive reassessment of the topic. It comprises detailed contributions on all federal states in Aegean Greece and its periphery. With every chapter written by a leading expert in the field, the book also incorporates thematic sections that place the topic in a broader historical and social-scientific context.

Here, in a single volume, is a selection of the classic critiques of the new Constitution penned by such ardent defenders of states' rights and personal liberty as George Mason, Patrick Henry, and Melancton Smith; pro-Constitution writings by James Wilson and Noah Webster; and thirty-three of the best-known and most crucial Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay. The texts of the chief constitutional documents of the early Republic are included as well. David Wootton's illuminating Introduction examines the history of such American principles of government as checks and balances, the separation of powers, representation by election, and judicial independence—including their roots in the largely Scottish, English, and French new science of politics. It also offers suggestions for reading The Federalist, the classic elaboration of these principles written in defense of a new Constitution that sought to apply them to the young Republic.

There were many writers other than John Jay, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton who, in 1787 and 1788, argued for the Constitution's ratification. In a collection central to our understanding of the American founding, Friends of the Constitution brings together forty-nine of the most important of these "other" Federalists' writings. Colleen A. Sheehan is Professor of Political Science at Villanova University. Gary L. McDowell is the Tyler Haynes Interdisciplinary Professor of Leadership Studies, Political Science, and Law at the University of Richmond in Virginia. From 1992 to 2003 he was the Director of the Institute of United States Studies in the University of London.

A multifaceted approach to The Federalist that covers both its historical value and its continuing political relevance.

Seminar paper from the year 2014 in the subject Politics - Region: USA, grade: 1,3, , course: The Federalist, language: English, abstract: The significance of antiquity and of examples drawn from antiquity during the American founding era is contested among scholars. While Hannah Arendt asserted that without the classical example the American revolutionaries, ''conscious of emulating ancient virtue,'' would not have had the courage to rebel, Bernard Bailyn famously suggested that frequent references to antiquity were merely ''illustrative, not determinative'' of revolutionary thought. As familiarity with antiquity was evident during the Revolutionary War, it is less clear what role it played in the construction of the new American regime under the constitution of 1787, a time during which not virtuous warfare but positive political philosophy was called for. Hence, a thorough examination of The Federalist shall serve to illuminate the extent to which the founding generation's political science was inspired by ancient precedent, resulting in the conclusion that examples drawn from antiquity did not supersede those drawn from other periods in human history, and that therefore no unique or special status can be ascribed to antiquity in this context.