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.
Alexander Hamilton
Hamilton recruited John Jay and James Madison to write a series of essays defending the proposed Constitution, now known as "The Federalist Papers", and made the largest contribution to that effort, writing 51 of 85 essays published (Madison wrote 29, Jay only five). Hamilton supervised the entire project, enlisted the participants, wrote the majority of the essays, and oversaw the publication. During the project each person was responsible for their areas of expertise. Jay covered foreign relations, Madison covered the history of republics and confederacies, along with the anatomy of the new government and Hamilton covered the branches of government most pertinent to him: the executive and judicial branches, with some aspects of the Senate, as well as covering military matters and taxation. The papers first appeared in "The Independent Journal" on October 27, 1787.