Federalist No. 66
The Federalist Papers, written by Alexander Hamilton and his colleagues John Jay and James Madison, were written in the late 1780s to argue in favor of the ratification of the United States Constitution to replace the Articles of Confederation, which served as the first form of a Constitution for the newly freed country. The Federalist Papers were directed towards the anti-federalists, those who opposed a stronger general government (especially the New York anti-federalists), both to persuade them and to persuade undecided citizens to ratify the Constitution.The first Federalist Paper was published on October 27, 1787 in the New York Independent Journal. The essays argued that the proposed government would preserve the Union and give power to the federal government to act on the interest of the nation.
Federal Farmer
Surviving private correspondence is unhelpful in answering the question of authorship. Many contemporary writers admitted the author's identity was unknown to them, including Noah Webster, Timothy Pickering, and Edward Carrington, who was in New York with Lee at the time the pamphlets were composed. Lee was not the only writer accused by Federalists of producing the pamphlets—a correspondent of John Lamb accused him of diverting money from the New York impost into the production of "the foederal farmer and other false Libels." Historian Gordon S. Wood observes that at least in Connecticut, emphasizing the association of Lee with any Anti-Federalist production would have been a sound political move for the Federalists; the Lee family was reviled in the state due to the involvement of Arthur Lee, Richard Henry's brother, in instigating the recall of Connecticut merchant Silas Deane from his position as envoy to France.