This country was shaped by many great men, with one simple idea of being able to live free lives and make their own choices. One of these men was Alexander Hamilton, who helped create a new political idea that he, and his colleagues, called Federalism. This system was one of the shaping forces of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, which proved to be the roots of Americas political system. The purpose of this paper is to explain Hamiltons idea of Federalism, and how it is still in affect today.Alexander Hamilton grew up in what was called the new world. He arrived here an impoverished immigrant and by the age of 17, he was already taking orders from General George Washington in the Continental Army as a Lieutenant Colonel. After the defeat of the British and the winning of freedom in America, Hamilton joined Washington, and other great political thinkers in drawing up a government. They did so by drawing up a loosely interpreted Articles of Confederation which only held out as long as possible until the Constitutional Convention when Congress finally agreed that a new Constitution was needed for the country. Around October 1787, The Federalist appeared in the New York Post. The Federalist was a series of papers about the government written under the penname Publius. The true authors of these publications were Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay. Hamilton wrote over 50 however, which was two-thirds of the papers published (Brookhiser, 63) . The papers also talked about a form of government where the central government would be very powerful, and the states just part of the Carlos 2government. Federalism was only a state of mind at this point, pretty much just a set of beliefs and ideas that were followed and a belief in a strong central government. Not all of the states were conscious of this political structure because it did not exist, and was only talked about in political philosophy writings. There were a...
