Federalist No. 68
Federalist No. 68 is the 68th essay of "The Federalist Papers", and was published on March 12, 1788. It is probably written by Alexander Hamilton under the pseudonym "Publius", the name under which all of the Federalist Papers were published. Since all of them were written under this pseudonym, who wrote what cannot be verified with certainty. Entitled "The Mode of Electing the President", No. 68 describes a perspective on the process of selecting the Chief Executive of the United States. In writing this essay, the author sought to convince the people of New York of the merits of the proposed Constitution. Number 68 is the second in a series of 11 essays discussing the powers and limitations of the Executive branch and the only one to describe the method of selecting the president.
The Federalist Papers
"The Federalist Papers" (specifically Federalist No. 84) are notable for their opposition to what later became the United States Bill of Rights. The idea of adding a Bill of Rights to the Constitution was originally controversial because the Constitution, as written, did not specifically enumerate or protect the rights of the people, rather it listed the powers of the government and left all that remained to the states and the people. Alexander Hamilton, the author of Federalist No. 84, feared that such an enumeration, once written down explicitly, would later be interpreted as a list of the "only" rights that people had.