SOURCE: Milligan, Edward. “Publius the Nationalist.” In One United People: The Federalist Papers and the National Idea, pp. 209-29. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1990.

In the following essay, Milligan argues that the authors of The Federalist Papers—collectively and individually—are better thought of as nationalists than federalists, suggesting that they very clearly favored a strong centralized national government, but disputing the notion that they primarily defended the property rights of the wealthy.

The exposition of the argument of Publius is now complete, and it is time to stand back from the canvas to take an overall look. The foregoing analysis has shown that The Federalist exhibits a clearly nationalist outlook and that the other prominent themes of the essays—federalism, separation of powers, checks and balances, and the interest-group theory of No. 10—are less central to Publius's purpose. Without difficulty, we can ascertain from the text of...