same hand which penned No. 49, and No. 51 was certainly composed by the writer of No. 50. In addition these essays discuss the powers from the purely historical and theoretical standpoint, views for which Madison had strong predilections. A candid survey of the facts, therefore, will, we think, lead every unbiased student to assign them to one author, and the balance of evidence certainly points to James Madison.[1]
But the same internal evidence shows that with No. 52, a minute and homogeneous examination of the structure of the grovernment is begun, in which the three departments are analyzed point by point. That one man wrote Nos. 52 to 58, that a second contributed Nos. 59 to 61, that then the original writer resumed his work in Nos. 62 and 63, and that finally the task was again assumed by the second writer, and completed by him, the essays themselves give no evidence. With the exception of the insertion of one essay (No. 64, on the treaty-making power of the Senate, which was given to Jay, because of his diplomatic experience), it is difficult to resist the conviction that the whole remainder of the letters are the work of one writer and one prone to take the practical rather than the theoretical view of things.
- ↑ One rather singular piece of evidence contradictory to the above conclusion is furnished by the comparative length of the different essays. When examining in the newspapers the original text of The Federalist my attention was called to the fact that the letters contributed by Hamilton rarely overran a column and a half, while those by Madison seldom filled less than three columns. I therefore carefully estimated the lengths of each man's work, to find that the average length of the fifty essays unquestionably written by Hamilton is 1800 words; of those certainly written by Madison, 3000 words. Madison wrote in the undoubted numbers (No. 10, 14, 37-46,) but two essays of less than 2300 words, and Hamilton but once wrote one of 3000 words, except in the last five, when an evident attempt was made to finish the series up quickly. Testing Nos. 49 to 58 and Nos. 62 and 63, the average length is found to be 1800 words. No. 47 contains 2700 words; No. 48, 1800; No. 49, 1600 words; No. 50, iioo words ; No. 51, 1800 words; No. 52, 1700 words. It is needless to add, to anyone who has studied the writings of the two men, that the differences between the two styles in this very respect is most noticeable. Madison is wordy and seems to have little ability to express an idea with brevity. Hamilton is direct and compact to an extent which made him a famous draftsman in his day, and few men have ever equaled him in his power of stating a thing tersely.
