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The Federalist, also often referred to as The Federalist Papers, is a series of essays written and published between October 1787 and August 1788 in New York newspapers. While always attributed to the single author "Publius," the essays were actually written by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison.

The essays appeared as a response to the political arguments of the time. On September 17, 1787, the Philadelphia Convention proposed a new Constitution. Almost immediately, opponents of the Constitution filled the New York newspapers with editorials. While a few supporters wrote in, most of them attacked the opponents rather than providing logical defenses of the Constitution. As a result, Alexander Hamilton contacted Madison and Jay and proposed that they compose a series of essays that clearly articulated the arguments for the Constitution. Hamilton felt this was epecially important because states were electing members to conventions which would decide whether to ratify the new Constitution. The essays would thus be a way to garner support for the Constitution as well as influence voters to elect candidates who favored ratification.

In March 1788, the essays were first collected in book form and printed by J. and A. McLean. This volume contained the first 36 essays, edited and corrected by Hamilton. The remaining essays, including the final eight which had yet to appear in newspapers, were published in a second volume in May 1788. The two volumes together form the "McLean edition" of the Federalist. The short descriptions provided on the index page are derived from the table of contents written by Hamilton for the McLean edition.

The Federalist was originally scanned by Project Gutenberg. This hypertext markup version was designed by Emory University School of Law, © 2006.