Complete Works. Hamilton Alexander
de Janeiro: Typ. Imperial e Const. de J. Villeneuve & Co., 1840.” I am indebted for my knowledge of this and the tenth edition mentioned above, neither of which are given by Mr. Dawson, to Mr. Paul Leicester Ford, author of the excellent Bibliotheca Hamiltoniana, which has just appeared in a handsome octavo volume.
XVII. The seventeenth was another Hallowell edition, a reprint of the others from the same press, and appeared in 1842.
XVIII. The eighteenth edition was published in one volume by J. & G. S. Gideon, in Washington, in 1845. It was a reprint of the edition of 1818, with the addition of the index of the Washington edition of 1831, with some improvements. Mr. Dawson failed to discover a copy of this edition, but I am informed by Mr. P. L. Ford that there is a copy, from which he has taken the title-page in his Bibliotheca Hamiltoniana (p. 27), in the possession of his father, Mr. Gordon L. Ford, of Brooklyn.
XIX. The nineteenth edition was published in one volume, in Philadelphia, by R. Wilson Desilver. It was a reprint of the Gideon edition of 1818, with the alphabetical index of 1831 and the addition of the act of Congress of January 23, 1845, relating to the election of President. It would seem to have been a reprint of the preceding edition of 1845.
XX. The twentieth was a Hallowell edition, published in 1852 by Masters, Smith, & Co., and was a reprint of their other editions, with the addition of an analytical index.
XXI. The twenty-first was also a Hallowell edition, published in 1857, and was an exact reprint of its predecessor of 1852.
XXII. The twenty-second edition of the Federalist was printed for the editor, Mr. Henry B. Dawson, at Morrisania, New York, and published in 1863. This edition, which is the most valuable one hitherto published, was designed for two volumes, of which the first alone has appeared. The volume published contains the Federalist with the original notes of the authors, a most learned introduction discussing the history, bibliography, text, and authorship of the essays, and a most admirable analytical table of contents, supplemented by a comparative list, showing the authorship of the essays as claimed by the various original authorities.
XXIII. The twenty-third or “University” edition was published in one volume, at New York, by Charles Scribner’s Sons, in 1864. It was edited by Mr. Dawson, and was a reprint of the first volume of his larger edition, without the introduction.
XXIV. The twenty-fourth edition was published in one volume by J. B. Lippincott & Co., at Philadelphia, in 1864. This edition was edited by Mr. J. C. Hamilton, and contains, besides the essays, a table of contents, an historical notice, which discusses at length the history, text, and authorship of the essays, the six numbers of the Continentalist (1781), the resolution of New York (1782) for a general convention, a letter from Hamilton to Clinton, May 14, 1783, resolution for a general convention (1783), the address of the Annapolis convention (1786), Hamilton’s speech on the Impost grant, resolution for an act of Congress for a general convention, February 17, 1787, resolution for the appointment of New York delegates, February 26, 1787, the articles of Confederation, Hamilton’s first plan of government, the federal Constitution as agreed upon by the convention, a table of collated texts, three essays by Philo-Publius (William Duer), and an alphabetical index.
This concludes the list of editions of the Federalist so far as I have been able to discover them. It is quite possible that there have been others published in this country or in Europe in addition to the twenty-four described, but if this is the case, the most careful inquiry and wide advertising have failed to discover them.
III.
The Text of the “Federalist”
The essays of the Federalist were first printed in the newspapers, and were then republished without substantial textual change in the McLean edition of 1788. In 1802, the Hopkins edition, described above, appeared with many textual changes in the essays written by Hamilton, and in 1818 the Gideon edition, with further changes in the Madison essays. The new text of these two editions was adopted in all subsequent editions, until the appearance of the one published in 1863 by Mr. Dawson, who reverted to the original text. Mr. John C. Hamilton, in his edition a year later, adopted the Hopkins and Gideon text. Thus it happens that there are two texts of the Federalist which contend for the honor of being the best and most authentic version of these famous essays.
I have had no hesitation in deciding as to the text to be adopted in this edition. Mr. Dawson’s argument in favor of the original text is unanswerable, and can be readily summarized. The essays of the Federalist were written at a special time for a special purpose. They formed an elaborate argument, intended to convince the people of the country of the value and usefulness of the proposed Constitution, and it is, therefore, historically essential that we should have them in the precise form in which they did their work.
The Federalist furthermore was the first authoritative interpretation of the Constitution, and was mainly written by the two principal authors of that instrument. It was the first exposition of the Constitution and the first step in the long process of development which has given life, meaning, and importance to the clauses agreed upon at Philadelphia. It has acquired all the weight and sanction of a judicial decision, and has been constantly used as an authority in the settlement of constitutional questions. The essays of Publius are undoubtedly a great work upon the general subject of political federation, and if they were nothing else, textual changes and improvements would be at least defensible, if not wholly desirable. But changes cease to be permissible when the writings in question are not only essays on the general subject of political federation and government under a written constitution, but are also arguments intended to serve a specific purpose at a particular time, which have assumed the weight and sanctity of judicial interpretation.
The authority for the most extensive changes, moreover, is by no means clear. It is certain that Hamilton opposed any alterations, and indeed forbade them. It is conceded also that the changes in the edition of 1802 were not made by Hamilton, with the exception probably of the paragraph in No. 56, and the extent of his approval of them is a matter of conjecture. The further slight changes in the edition of 1818 have, it is true, the sanction of Madison, but what we desire now is not Madison’s arguments in the phrases which he preferred in 1818, but in the words which he actually used in 1787 and 1788.
Finally, the changes were, as a rule, unimportant, often trivial, with two or three exceptions, entirely verbal, and, in my opinion, made no improvement. The text of this edition, therefore, is the original text of the newspapers and the McLean edition of 1788 as adopted by Mr. Dawson. I have added a few notes giving the text of the subsequent changes in every case where they seemed of the slightest importance, or where, by any possible construction, they could be considered to affect the meaning of the passage.
In only one point is Mr. Dawson’s edition as it seems to me open to criticism, and in that point alone does this edition depart from his text. The McLean edition changed the original numbering of the essays as they appeared in the newspapers. No. 35 of the newspapers was put back in the series and numbered 29. This was a proper change, because it placed the original No. 35 where it belonged in the natural sequence of subjects and arguments. The original Nos. 29 and 30 thus became 30 and 31, respectively. Then the McLean edition divided the original No. 31 into two parts, and numbered them 32 and 33. This change has no apparent reason, but it is perfectly harmless and unimportant. The effect of these changes was to advance the McLean essays one number each over the newspaper originals up to 76, which became 77 in the book-form. The remaining essays, 78 to 85 inclusive, appeared first from the author’s manuscript in the McLean edition, and were reprinted in the newspapers from that edition probably with the newspaper numbering, so that no No. 85 ever appeared in the newspapers. It is obvious that the McLean edition must have had the approval of Hamilton, because the last eight numbers were printed from his manuscript; and if the edition had his sanction, of course the arrangement and numbering must have had it also, for these were the only points on which it differed from the newspapers. It is clear, therefore, that Hamilton thought the McLean numbering an improvement, and the changes then made in