The Federalist Papers are a series of 85 essays advocating the ratification of the United States Constitution. Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay explored in minute detail the implications of establishing a new kind of government. The Federalist Papers stand as key documents in the founding of the United States.
Seventy-seven of the essays were published serially in The Independent Journal and The New York Packet between October 1787 and August 1788. A compilation of these and eight others, called The Federalist; or, The New Constitution, was published in two volumes in 1788.