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Honnold Library Record: The Federalist Papers
From the Honnold Library Record, Volume 4, Number 2. Fall 1961:
The Federalist Papers
Mr. Douglass Adair has given the Library a collection of works on The Federalist, the important series of essays in support of the new Constitution, written by Hamilton, Jay and Madison. The collection includes all the important editions of the essays as well as photostats of the numbers of the New York Independent Journal and Daily Advertiser for 1787 and 1788 which contained the original printings of the papers. The collection also includes the important critical works on The Federalist. In 1787 when the work of the Federal Convention was ended and the Constitution was to be submitted to the States for approval, there was a great deal of opposition to the proposed new government, especially in New York.
The Federalist essays helped secure the adoption of the Constitution by the State of New York. When in May 1788 the first 78 essays had appeared, they were collected and published in book form. The collection has this edition. A second volume was later published containing the remainder of the essays, and the collection has this book also. These two volumes constitute the first edition. The collection also contains the second edition, which was actually a French translation published in 1792. By 1864 The Federalist had gone through twenty-four editions. The collection contains the twenty-fourth edition and a representative number of editions between the second and the twenty-fourth. The Federalist Papers have also been published in Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, France, Germany, Italy and England, and the collection contains some of these foreign editions. Nearly all the editions have introductions which are valuable commentaries on the work, and other commentaries are also included in the collection.
The essays have been universally admired. Jefferson called them “the best commentary on the principles of government which was ever written.” Charles A. Beard thought The Federalist the most instructive work on political science ever written in the United States. The French historian and statesman, Guizot, said that The Federalist was the greatest work known to him concerning the application of the elementary principles of government to practical administration; and John Stuart Mill considered the work to be “the most instructive treatise we possess on federal government.”
This gift from Mr. Adair, which is given in honor of his mother, is a most valuable and vital addition to the Library.
The materials mentioned here are physically located in Special Collections. For more information on those materials, contact Special Collections.
What is the Honnold Library Record?
The Honnold Library Record, published from 1958 until 1975, was the publication of the Honnold Library Society, the friends of the library group, founded in 1954. All the issues of the Honnold Library Record are available online in the CCDL in the Honnold Library Record Collection.
— michael | February 26, 2008 07:25 PM | The more you know
