Alexander Hamilton has become
something of a cult hero in the past two years due to the Broadway production.
Among Hamilton’s great
accomplishments, he led the effort to ratify our Constitution.
He, with James Madison and John Jay, authored
85 news editorials in 1787 to persuade Americans to adopt the proposed Constitution. They sent these submissions to three different New York newspapers (none were the NYT).
We now call this collection The Federalist Papers. They were published as two books in 1788.
The point is that Hamilton, Madison,
and Jay did not use their names in writing these controversial op-ed pieces.
They used the pseudonym “Publius.”
Anti-federalists published op-ed
pieces under the pseudonyms of “Cato” and “Brutus.”
Hamilton apparently wanted the
Federalist op-eds to be associated with Roman history (Publius Cimber was a
Roman senator) and the New Testament (Publius received the Apostle Paul during
his shipwreck on the island).
The circumstances then and now are
quite different, of course—but they have the common thread of an anonymous
writer try to convince Americans that they are on the right side of history in
times of constitutional peril. These writers are also appealing for public support.
A closing thought: If Publius was, in
fact, three authors, why should we assume that the anonymous writer to the NYT
is just one person? Why not three, or more?
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