Federalist No. 1: How Would Publius Define Good Government Today?

• Published date: 01 December 2011
• Author: Paul C. Light
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6210.2011.02456.x
• Date: 01 December 2011

Paul C. Light is the Paulette Goddard

Professor of Public Service in the Robert F.

Wagner School of Public Service at New

York University. Before joining NYU, he was

vice president of the Brookings Institution’s

Governmental Studies Program and found-

ing director of its Center for Public Service.

He served as the senior advisor to the 1988

and 2002 National Commissions on the

Public Service chaired by former Federal

Reserve Board Chairman Paul A. Volcker.

E-mail: paul.light@nyu.edu.

How Would Publius Def‌i ne Good Government Today? S7

Paul C. Light

New York University

Federalist No. 1 sets the basic framework for interpreting

the U.S. Constitution. It contains an implied def‌i nition

of “good government” that occupied the founders as

they built a stronger national government.  is essay

explains the conf‌l ict embedded in the debate between the

two theories of good government of‌f ered by Alexander

Hamilton and  omas Jef‌f erson and asks how the

competing def‌i nitions might be reconciled with recent

experience.

These are times that try the faithful execution

of the laws. As its administrative capacity

has dwindled with each chief executive since

Watergate, and even now is accelerating with the

hyperpolarization on Capitol Hill, government is rife

with potential breakdowns. Although it would be

presumptuous to suggest that the past 40 years have

been the most dif‌f‌i cult for governance in U.S. history,

it seems reasonable to suggest that they have brought

the nation to a critical moment

in time.

In a sentence, the federal gov-

ernment is becoming the desti-

nation of last resort for Amer-

ica’s greatest problems. When

Americans hear the words “pub-

lic service” today, they rarely

think of government; when they

hear the words “fraud,” “waste,”

“abuse,” “downsizing,” and

“labor unions,” they rarely think

of anything else.

As the old saying goes, govern-

ment is always the enemy until the public needs a

friend.  e question is just how good a friend govern-

ment can be after 30 years of downsizings, hiring

freezes, budget cuts, agency breakdowns, 24-hour

scrutiny, and unending reform.

Writing as Publius, the three authors of the 85 Fed-

eralist Papers made an aggressive case that a new and

more powerful national government was the answer

to a similar cascade of failures under the Articles of

Confederation.

As the primary architect of what he called the “ener-

getic executive,” Alexander Hamilton made frequent

references to concerns about the loss of state power, at

one point warning that the “enlightened zeal for the

energy and ef‌f‌i ciency of government will be stigma-

tized as the of‌f spring of a temper fond of despotic

power and hostile to the principles of liberty” (Wright

1962, 92).

 e essays in this special issue ask whether the Federal-

ist defense of the Constitution is still on point today.

Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison

could not have anticipated the many changes that

would arise as the new Constitution produced a

towering government, expanding agenda, and periods

of intense national division.

Nor could they have anticipated

the changing strategies and

tactics needed to produce what

Hamilton later described “good

administration” (Wright 1962,

443). Indeed, the battle over

ratif‌i cation of the Constitution

ref‌l ected a philosophical schism

that Publius might be forced to

reconcile today.

A Government Well

Executed in 2011

 e federal government reached

its current breaking point

through benign and deliberate neglect, aggressive

dismantling and resource cuts, and the unintended

consequences of unchecked bureaucratization. What-

ever the cause, the result was the same: more demand

for high performance and less capacity to produce it.

 e erosion also resides in a 200-year struggle over the

def‌i nition of a government well executed.  e found-

Federalist No. 1: How Would Publius Def‌i ne Good

Government Today?

 e essays in this special issue

ask whether the Federalist

defense of the Constitution

is still on point today.  e

founders clearly wanted a

national government that would

be strong enough to guide a

fragile, debt-ridden nation into

a dangerous future, but not so

strong that it could be used to

suppress basic liberties.