Title: Federalist Party | Definition, History, Beliefs, & Facts | Britannica
Headings: Federalist Party
Federalist Party
historical political party, United States

Content: Federalist Party | Definition, History, Beliefs, & Facts | Britannica
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Federalist Party
historical political party, United States
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Alternative Title: Federal Party
Federalist Party, early U.S. national political party that advocated a strong central government and held power from 1789 to 1801, during the rise of the country’s political party system. The term federalist was first used in 1787 to describe the supporters of the newly written Constitution, who emphasized the federal character of the proposed union. Between October 1787 and August 1788, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison wrote a series of 85 essays that appeared in various New York newspapers attributed to the pseudonym “Publius.” The Federalist papers (formally The Federalist ), as the combined essays are called, were written to combat Anti-Federalism and to persuade the public of the necessity of the Constitution. The Federalist papers stressed the need for an adequate central government and argued that the republican form of government easily could be adapted to the large expanse of territory and widely divergent interests found in the United States. The essays were immediately recognized as the most powerful defense of the new Constitution. Satire of the Hartford Convention, secret meetings of Federalists that lasted from December 1814 to January 1815 and eventually led to the party's demise. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (digital id: ppmsca 10755)
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