with Wood on many points but concludes that the evidence for Lee is not "sufficient to justify continuing this attribution." The editors of The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution declare Wood's challenge to Lee's authorship to be "effective." Accepting that Lee did not write the pamphlet raises the question of who did. Wood asserts that the authorship of the pamphlets is a mystery that will probably never be solved, though he believes it probable that they were produced by a New York resident. Robert Webking argues that Melancton Smith was probably the author. Webking finds deep similarities between Smith's speeches at the New York ratifying convention and the Federal Farmer. Furthermore, a computational analysis of Smith's writings and speeches done by John Burrows found that Lee's authorship "found no support at all" and Smith was the most likely author. Smith, a New York lawyer, was one of the Anti-Federalist leaders at the New York convention, though he eventually voted for the Constitution. Webking speculates that Smith might have kept his authorship of the Federal Farmer pamphlets a close secret so as not to jeopardize his future as a politician in heavily Federalist New York City. Argument The Federal Farmer argues that the plan of the Constitution, while claimed to be a federal system and seeming to be so in some respects, will in the end annihilate the states by consolidating them into one national government. This concern over consolidation was among the most important of the Anti-Federalist objections to the Constitution; they saw the destruction of state sovereignty as inimical to freedom. Honest federalists, in the view of the Federal Farmer, wished for the substantial preservation of the state governments, but sought a federal government that was more than merely advisory. The letters indicate that the Federal Farmer ascribed to the compact theory of federalism. The threat to federal government constituted a menace to republicanism. Without federalism, a republic the size of the United States would have grave difficulty giving fair representation to the varied interests of the people in the different states. Representatives in the national capital would have to be kept responsible to their constituents at home; the Federal Farmer believed that a large number of representatives was required to ensure a high ratio of representatives to constituents and guarantee that all classes would be fairly represented. Evaluation The Federal Farmer letters are among the