Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-rkxrd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-23T22:19:56.605Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - John Jay, The Federalist, and the Constitution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2020

Jack N. Rakove
Affiliation:
Stanford University, California
Colleen A. Sheehan
Affiliation:
Villanova University, Pennsylvania
Get access

Summary

On October 22, 1787, five days before the appearance of the first Federalist paper, John and Sarah Jay hosted a dinner party in New York City whose guests included Alexander Hamilton and James Madison. Hamilton had recently returned from Albany, where he had pled before the state supreme court, while Madison was attending the moribund Continental Congress. John Jay’s hosting duties represented the social side of his official role as secretary for foreign affairs under the Articles of Confederation, but on this occasion his guests were all men of affairs, and politics could hardly be avoided in the charged atmosphere created by the recently proposed Constitution. While it is tempting to picture Jay, Hamilton, and Madison – the future Publius – finalizing their plans over Madeira and rum punch, the secrecy of the project makes it unlikely that it was openly discussed.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×