James Madison: Federalist 14

Federalist 14 was one of seventy-seven essays published serially in New York City newspapers from October 1787 to August 1788 to explain the theory and workings of the proposed U.S. Constitution and to argue for its ratification. The Articles of Confederation underpinned the first national government of the new republic from 1781 to 1788. The Confederation was a league of thirteen sovereign states with a one-house legislature and no executive. Congress had no independent income and no authority to compel states to accept its rulings, and it was unable to act directly on the states. It could not regulate either interstate or foreign trade, levy taxes or tariffs to raise revenue, or raise a military force for national defense. The Confederation was thus more an assembly of delegates from the states than it was a national government.

To correct the weaknesses of the earlier Articles of Confederation, influential political figures had met in Philadelphia to craft a constitution in the summer of 1787. When the convention adjourned, opponents of the proposed constitution, called Antifederalists, mounted a furious campaign against its ratification. These men included several Revolutionary War heroes, among them, Patrick Henry, Henry Lee, and Samuel Adams. To counter this effort, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison planned and wrote a series of modest essays defending the constitution, to be published in New York City newspapers. These essays, along with eight others, were later compiled in a collection called The Federalist—or simply, Federalist Papers—and published in 1788 in two volumes. Madison wrote the collection’s three most influential essays, including Federalist 14, “Objections to the Proposed Constitution from Extent of Territory Answered.”