“EVERY GOVERNMENT OUGHT TO CONTAIN IN ITSELF THE MEANS OF ITS OWN PRESERVATION”: EXTREMELY SCARCE FIRST PRINTING OF HAMILTON’S ESSAY NO. 60 FROM THE FEDERALIST PAPERS, APPEARING FOR THE FIRST TIME WITH HIS ESSAY NO. 59 IN THE NEW-YORK PACKET, FEBRUARY 26, 1788, PRECEDING THEIR FIRST BOOK PUBLICATION BY THREE MONTHS
[HAMILTON, Alexander and MADISON, James]. Federalist Essays. IN: New-York Packet. No. 779. New York, Tuesday, February 26, 1788. Folio tabloid sheet, measuring 11 by 18 inches folded. Framed with engraved portraits of Hamilton and Madison, entire piece measures 35 by 27 inches.
Exceptional first printing of Federalist Papers essay, Number 60, appearing for the first time alongside a scarce second printing of its companion essay Number 59 (respectively renumbered 61 & 60 in their first collected book publication of May 1788)—Alexander’s Hamilton’s concluding seminal thoughts on Congress’s regulation of its elections, published under the pseudonym of “Publius” in the February 1788 printing of The New-York Packet.
This extremely scarce February 26, 1788 edition of The New-York Packet contains the momentous first printing of the key concluding essay in Alexander Hamilton’s foundational series on elections in the Federalist Papers-“a literary and political masterpiece”—printed here for the first time alongside that three-part series’ second essay, Number 59, which appears here only three days after its initial publication in New York’s Independent Journal. Writing as “Publius,” Hamilton offers his final thoughts on a subject he introduced one week earlier—also in The New-York Packet—that of the power of Congress “to regulate, in the last resort, the election of its own members” (Chernow, 249). Significantly it was Hamilton who “invited his fellow New Yorker John Jay and James Madison, a Virginian, to join him in writing the series of essays published as The Federalist… to meet the immediate need of convincing the reluctant New York State electorate of the necessity of ratifying the newly proposed Constitution of the United States. The 85 essays… were designed as political propaganda, not as a treatise of political philosophy. In spite of this, The Federalist survives as one of the new nation’s most important contributions to the theory of government” (PMM, 234). The Federalist “exerted a powerful influence in procuring the adoption of the Federal Constitution, not only in New York but in the other states. There is probably no work in so small a compass that contains so much valuable political information. The true principles of a republican form of government are here unfolded with great clearness and simplicity” (Church 1230). It is a work that remains “the most thorough and brilliant explication of the Federal Constitution (or any other constitution) ever written” (Smith, 263-4).
The achievement of Hamilton, Madison and Jay “is the more astonishing for having been written under such fierce deadline pressure… [Hamilton’s close friend] Robert Troup remembered seeing Samuel Loudon [publisher of The New-York Packet] ‘in Hamilton’s study, waiting to take numbers of The Federalist as they came fresh from’ his pen ‘in order to publish them in the next paper” (Chernow, 249, 264). “A generation passed before it was recognized that these essays by the principal author of the Constitution and its brilliant advocate were the most authoritative interpretation of the Constitution as drafted by the Convention of 1787… The influence of the Federalist has been profound” (Grolier 100 American 56). “The first number of the Federalist appeared in the New York Independent Journal on October 27, 1787. Subsequent essays were published at various intervals in the Independent Journal, the New-York Packet, the New York Daily Advertiser and the New-York Journal’ (Crane, William & Mary Quarterly, 589), followed by scattered publication “in only a dozen papers outside of New York” (Chernow, 261). “All of The Federalist Papers essays first appeared in The Independent Journal or The New-York Packet… [Both] carried the entire series of essays” (Cooke, 600n). This extremely scarce newspaper printing of Hamilton’s two essays contains many phrasings later altered or deleted in the first collected book publication (Cooke, 643-4). “These letters were still appearing in late March 1788, when the first 36 were issued in a collected edition… A second volume containing numbers 37-85 was published May 28, 1788” (Rossiter, Preface, Federalist Papers). Hamilton’s two essays, appearing on the second page under “Miscellany,” were initially numbered 59-60, as seen here, and renumbered 60-61 in the May 1788 collected book edition. See Sabin 23979; Howes H114; Evans 21127, 21327; Streeter II:1049.
Light dampstaining, tiny closed tears and minimal creases along fold-lines. An outstanding work of signal historical importance, in extremely good condition. Beautifully framed.