Historians tell us the delegates were eager to leave. Some of them missed their families. Some had run out of money. Some had farms and businesses they wanted to get back to. And some were just weary of living out of a suitcase. So on September 17, 1787, thirty-nine men representing eleven states signed a document they admitted was imperfect.

The Federalist Papers are not gospel truth. They contain a lot of guesswork, some flawed reasoning, and not a little low-down mudslinging.

Americans are fortunate to live in a country that is economically and socially and militarily strong. And it is strong because it is large and united.

[W]e can cheerfully admit that the Constitution has been effective and successful throughout the nation’s history in managing westward expansion and statehood issues.

Analysts and armchair historians today hold that Lincoln’s war could have been avoided if he had not pressed so hard to preserve the Union.

Montesquieu had written that republics needed to be very small and local, to ensure that the people were sufficiently well represented.

Hamilton urges readers to approve the Constitution, because it will give America a chance to poke arrogant Europe in the eye.

Hamilton’s vision of a strong central government is founded on greater coercion: taking larger tax payments than the people would wish to pay.

There is, indeed, but one national government. But it is massive.

He said the country wouldn’t get so big that mere distances would make governing impractical. He was correct.

The Constitution was not a dramatic turn in human affairs toward liberty and self-government. It should be seen, rather, as a step away from those principles after the disappointing experience from 1778 to 1787. The purpose of the Constitution was to give the national government more coercive power over the states and the citizens.

Whatever the people ask government to do, they should be willing to support the government enough to do that job well.

[T]he Constitution contains a safeguard against abuse of the military found in no other nation’s laws. It separated the power to fund the army from the power to use it.

[I]t is better to hazard abuse than to embarrass the government by impolitic restrictions.

They were ready to accept a stronger national government with a standing army, so long as they could defend their state’s rights with their militia. And under the Constitution, Congress grasped control of the militias, too!

Government should have the resources necessary to accomplish its functions.