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Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Federalist Papers, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
The Importance of the Constitution
The Necessity of a Strong Union
Leadership and Representation
Checks and Balances
Federal Power vs. States Rights
Summary
Analysis
Alexander Hamilton highlights the necessity of a strong Union to maintain peace, liberty, and stability to prevent the chaos seen in ancient Greece and Italy’s small republics. For Hamilton, modern advances like checks and balances and representation make republican government more effective. A large Confederacy combines the benefits of small republics and large monarchies by ensuring internal stability and external security. Citing the French judge Montesquieu, Hamilton praises confederate republics for uniting smaller states under a central authority while preserving local independence, which suppresses unrest and deters foreign threats. He counters claims that the Constitution centralizes power by emphasizing its preservation of state governments within a federal system. Historical examples, like the Lycian confederacy, demonstrate how such federations ensure fair representation, collective strength, and enduring stability.
Hamilton draws on the histories of ancient Greece and Italy to highlight how small, fragmented republics tend to collapse under internal conflict and external invasions, using these failures as cautionary examples against disunion. By invoking the Lycian confederacy, a historical federation that balanced local autonomy with central authority, he presents a successful model for how smaller states can unite for mutual defense and stability without sacrificing self-governance. His reference to Montesquieu strengthens this point, showing that even critics of large republics recognized the value of confederate systems when properly structured. These examples allow Hamilton to argue that the Constitution refines past models, offering a system strong enough to prevent chaos while upholding respect for local independence.
Themes
