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of a new and more favorable meaning of the word “federal.” Originally, the term provided an antidote to proponents of further nationalism and consolidation under the Confederation. One of the boldest rhetorical achievements of The Federalist would be to attach a new meaning of “federal” to the proposed Constitution through its self-proclaimed “federalist” supporters and writings. In the wake of Publius, all opponents to the Constitution would be “antifederalists,” a designation that quickly carried the implications of gloomy partiality for something less than joyous union with other Americans. Always a fast learner, Hamilton would see Jay’s strategy and adopt it as his own in subsequent papers. His abrasive tones would resurface, but Jay’s composure and equanimity in the positive claim of union, also more in keeping with Madison’s temperament, would guide and control the tone of The Federalist henceforth.
    James Madison, as the last to join, is harder to figure as a logical collaborator until one looks at the facts. Madison and Hamilton were temperamentally unsuited for each other and would become political enemies in 1789, during George Washington’s first administration, but there was a great deal to hold them together in 1787. It made sense for Hamilton to reach out to a leader from another state, especially Virginia, in his nationalist project of union. Madison was available in New York after the Convention as a representative in Congress. Previously, the two men had joined as instigators of the Annapolis Convention of 1786, which brought together delegates from five states to discuss the economic problems of the union and ended by calling for a more general constitutional convention, and they then became firm allies as delegates in Philadelphia the following year. Both were strong unionists, and Madison, by common consensus even then, had been the guide for others in framing the Constitution in Philadelphia. William Pierce, a delegate from Georgia, wrote thumbnail sketches of the other framers in Philadelphia and found Madison to be “the best informed Man of any point in debate. The affairs of the United States, he perhaps, has the most correct knowledge of, of any Man in the Union.” 6 This evaluation would be borne out again in The Federalist. For while Hamilton had the tougher and more comprehensive view of politics, Madison would prove the deeper reader of theoretical possibilities and would provide philosophical heft. A scholar first and man of affairs only after, the reclusive Madison had schooled himself with great care in the history of congresses and confederacies. He had identified all of the problems and knew how to create imaginative solutions to them.
    Today Madison’s first contribution to the collaboration, “Federalist No. 10,” is accepted as a separate tour de force within the collection. It gave, among other things, a new philosophical answer to the problem of an extended republic. Madison claimed that an enlarged sphere with proper representation could best balance competing interests and protect minorities from majoritarian pressures. He also fused federalism and republicanism as joint operations under the Constitution and soothed fears about the bugaboo of the age, namely factionalism. “Liberty is to faction, what air is to fire,” Madison wrote in one of his boldest strokes, “an aliment, without which it instantly expires” (p. 53). Liberty, like fire, was dangerous when uncontrolled but a virtue when properly exercised.
    In words that would gain a life of their own in the American polity, “Federalist No. 10” argued that “diversity” had to be celebrated instead of squelched. Factional differences were inevitable as a practical matter, and recognition of their constant presence brought a moral component, toleration, to bear on how a citizenry should deal with the nature of conflict. There was room and opportunity in America for all to get along. Admonitions