SOURCE: Sullivan, Kathleen M. “The Contemporary Relevance of The Federalist.” In New Federalist Papers: Essays in Defense of the Constitution, edited by Alan Brinkley, Nelson W. Polsby, and Kathleen M. Sullivan, pp. 7-14. New York: W. W. Norton, 1997.

In the following essay, Sullivan defends the principles of The Federalist Papers from what she calls the new Anti-Federalists: proponents of states' rights and a weaker federal government. Sullivan acknowledges the differences in technology and society that affect some of Publius's basic assumptions about factions and centralized government, but nonetheless concludes that founders' advocation of Federalism remains the best method for addressing the problems of modern America.

The framers of the Constitution empowered the federal government in the belief that it was the best check we have on the “propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities,” as James Madison wrote in The Federalist No. 10. Yet many contemporary critics of...