Essay • 1787

Federalist No. 1

Alexander Hamilton (Publius)

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Hamilton's opening salvo in the Federalist Papers (October 1787) framed ratification as a test of whether free people could establish good government 'from reflection and choice' rather than 'accident and force.' It set the tone for the eighty-four essays that followed.

It has been frequently remarked, that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend, for their political constitutions, on accident and force.

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