Review: More than a museum piece
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 02 29, 2012
This book deserves five stars for its place in history and in American jurisprudence.However, I have to deduct a star: not for the papers themselves, but for the original editor who collected these papers.  The Federalist Papers are a series of contemporaneous essays rebutting critics of the proposed Constitution.  A better historical collection would start with complaints about the Articles of Confederation, defenses against those complaints, arguments in favor of the new Constitution, arguments against, rebuttals to arguments in favor, rebuttals to arguments against.  The Federalist Papers are all in the "arguments in favor" and "rebuttals to arguments against" categories, leaving the other side unrepresented, and many of the "we need a constitution in the first place" arguments represented only by inference.The authors devoted considerable attention to the checks and balances of the new Constitution: who elects whom, who impeaches whom, who overrules whom.  This part of the work reads well.  They did overlook one giant problem: the original procedure for electing vice presidents turned out to be completely unworkable.  The procedure for amending the Constitution to fix that problem, however, worked well.Another unforeseen problem: the Constitution makes it difficult for the Legislature and Executive to remove Justices, but there's no protection against diluting the power of the courts by appointing lots more justices, as Roosevelt attempted when he disagreed with certain rulings of the Supreme Court.It's also interesting (and a bit beyond my power as a layman) to apply the analyses of Publius to other federations, such as the 20th century USSR and the partial federation of the European Union.I read this book on my Kindle and found it much convenient.  With 85 essays, I could read 1 or 2 essays at a time, read something else, and come back.  Much better than a daunting thick paperback.