Original documents: The Federalist Papers

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I have students reading #s 9 & 10, #29, #47, and #51 at present...they are very intrigued and quite alarmed.
 
The Opening of Federalist #1: "AFTER an unequivocal experience of the inefficiency of the subsisting federal government, you are called upon to deliberate on a new Constitution for the United States of America. The subject speaks its own importance; comprehending in its consequences nothing less than the existence of the UNION, the safety and welfare of the parts of which it is composed, the fate of an empire in many respects the most interesting in the world. 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."

 
Been reading a good bit of the Federalist Papers in the past few months and the words and messages there are hitting me like never before.

What kind of blew my mind this past week was how much interest there was among my students in Federalist Paper #29 -- it is essentially Hamilton's argument on behalf the favorability of a well-regulated and disciplined militia under state authority -- but one coordinated by the federal government to ensure national defense and civil stability. Hamilton feared a Standing Army because he believed that they could too easily be deployed to threaten liberty or even crush dissent if placed under the control of a corrupt executive or faction.

My students got that.
 
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