SOURCE: Duncan, Christopher M. “The Faith of the Federalists.” In The Anti-Federalists and Early American Political Thought, pp. 99-122. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1995.

In the following excerpt, Duncan offers a highly critical view of The Federalist Papers, maintaining that its politics are underwritten with a cynical, Hobbesian view of human nature and a strong tendency toward elitism.

… we were under a necessity of either returning to the house, and by our presence enabling them to call a convention before our constituents could have the means of information, or time to deliberate on the subject, or by absenting ourselves from the house, prevent the measure taking place. … Thus circumstanced and thus influenced, we determined the next morning, again to absent ourselves from the house, when James M'Calmount, esquire, a member from Franklin, and Jacob Miley, esquire, a member from Dauphin, were seized by a number of citizens of...