Country Before Party

Principles

THE FEDERALIST proceeds from a simple conviction: that republican government cannot be preserved by faction alone. The Union must be strong enough to perform its lawful duties, restrained enough to leave the States their proper authority, and respected enough that political defeat does not become a license for disunion.

• Union. The several States are not rival nations, but members of one constitutional Republic.
• Federalism. Power ought to be energetic within its proper sphere and restrained beyond it.
• Ordered liberty. Liberty is best secured when law governs power, and power is divided before it is trusted.
• Public reason. The argument should be offered plainly, and the reader left free to judge it.