The Eleventh Pillar: New York State and the Federal Constitution

The contest over New York’s ratification of the federal Constitution involved the deepest political beliefs of its participants, who included such partisans as Alexander Hamilton, George Clinton. and Abraham Yates. In the first book-length work to deal exclusively and comprehensively with this subject, Professor De Pauw questions the theory that this struggle was motivated primarily by social and economic differences. Her main concern is to expose the political aims of the Federalists and Antifederalists and the means they employed in achieving those ends. Although she minimizes the political significance of The Federalist Papers, she recognizes that the essays published by both parties — particularly Hamilton’s more violent anti-Antifederalist papers — were effective as political propaganda at the time. Even now, they color modern notions about the intentions of the delegates to the Poughkeepsie convention.