
The Federalist Papers
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Narrated by:
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Michael Edwards
The US Constitution was approved by the Constitutional Convention on September 17, 1787. It was to become law only if it was ratified by nine of the 13 states. New York was a key state, but it contained strong forces opposing the Constitution. A series of eighty-five letters appeared in New York City newspapers between October 1787 and August 1788 urging support for the Constitution. These letters remain the first and most authoritative commentary on the American concept of federal government.
Later known as The Federalist Papers, they were published under the pseudonym ‘Publius,’ although written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay.
Public Domain (P)1989 Blackstone Audio, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...




















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But - Come On Man! Micheal Edwards goes out of his way to make this dry listen truly horrible. It took me months to get through it all because the voice is horrible
Worse narrator - Of All Time - Evah!
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As to the substance, it was shockingly good. The legal analysis was persuasive. The founders were very clearheaded about future leaders need to bend the language of the Constitution to address some crisis, and they drafted the language anticipating the most tempting misconstructions. The geopolitical analysis was also impressive.
I was expecting a lot more contentless rhetoric and appeals to divine authority. The document was mostly secular. I was also surprised by the priority placed on commercial interests in the early papers.
I admit it got boring. And Hamilton got a little testy toward the end. But I hope reading good legal writing improves my writing. This was worth the investment of time.
Well written. More commercial and secular than I expected.
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The writing from 1788 sounds as if could have been written today with surprisingly few archaic words or stilted phrasing. Good argumentation never goes out of style.
Buy it when it goes on 2 for 1 sale
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Edit, please.
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I'm glad I got this for free as part of Audible's lock-down educational good will program, as I'd hate to have paid money for it.
like listening to a bored professor on Laudanum
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Great text, flawed recording
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Intelligently Read
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The reading style is clear, and conducive to listening with attention.
A Must Read to Understand the US Constitution
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Mercifully, it wasn’t as boring as all that. I am not that fond of politics in general, so it only gets 4 stars. But this audiobook was well done, so that helped a lot. Except that there were numerous cases – like a lot – where a sentence was repeated twice in a row. Not that big a problem; If I had been reading it in a print version, I would probably have had to read every sentence twice and some of them more than that just to understand them. But if the extra sentences had all been deleted, probably the length of the whole performance could have been cut by half an hour or more. I assume this was an editing thing.
Anyway, The Federalist Papers is a series of essays which originally appeared as newspaper articles around the country during the time when the states were deciding whether to ratify the new Constitution. Though they were all signed ‘Publius’ in an attempt to effect anonymity, the individual essays were written by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, or James Madison, and contain all the reasons why the Constitution should be ratified. Some of the objections they are trying to answer seem silly today. Some of their considerations are now out of date, having been remedied by subsequent amendments, particularly the Bill of Rights, which was added later. Some have been rendered moot by the ways life and/or society has changed since the 1780’s. But on the whole, the Constitution they were boosting seems to have held up pretty well, especially considering some of the things it has been put through.
Pretty good for a political document
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Great book
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