In 1787, there was a controversy over whether there should be a ratification of the constitution or not. Many peoples opinion varied on the subject. The Federalists believed that the Articles of Confederation were a failure and that we needed to rewrite the constitution. The Anti-Federalists had a different opinion; they believed that we shouldnÃÂt ratify the constitution.
Shortly after the states sent the constitution to be ratified in late September 1787, an article was published in a New York paper. The article was an anti-federalist article written by an author who went under the pen name Cato. Cato was suspected to be George Clinton who served as vice president under James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. This was the first articled published trying to convince the people of the United States that there was no need to ratify the constitution. This began a long feud between federalist and anti-federalist. Another anti-federalist article was published October 18th 1787 by an author going under a different pen name of Brutus.
The Articles of Conferderation, ratified in 1781. ...
The Articles of Confederation, ratified in 1781. T...
The Articles of Conferderation, ratified in 1781. ...Brutus was believed to be Robert Yates who was a well known anti-federalist. The name Brutus came from Marcus Junius Brutus who helped in the assassination of Julius Caesar. These articles had had one purpose, to convince the citizens that there was no need to ratify our constitution.
In response to these articles Alexander Hamilton wrote the essay Federalist #1. The essay was published in The Independent Journal under the pen name Publius. Publius is short for Publius Valerious Puplicola, which means friend of the people in roman. The pen name was good for the authors because they made it seem like they were trying to help the people. The article was considered an introduction to more articles to come later. For the other articles he recruited to John Jay and James...