Elliot's Debates is a five-volume collection compiled by Jonathan Elliot in the mid-nineteenth century. The volumes remain the best source for materials about the national government's transitional period between the closing of the Constitutional Convention in September 1787 and the opening of the First Federal Congress in March 1789.

Farrand's Records gathered the documentary records of the Constitutional Convention into four volumes, three of which are included in this online collection, containing the materials necessary to study the workings of the Constitutional Convention. The notes taken at that time by James Madison, and later revised by him, form the largest single block of material other than the official proceedings. The three volumes also include notes and letters by many other participants, as well as the various constitutional plans proposed during the convention.

James Madison's Federalist no. 10 is one of the most important and enduring statements of American political theory. Its reasoned statement explains what an expanding nation might do if it accepted the basic premise of majority rule, a balanced government of three separate branches, and a commitment to balance all the diverse interests through a system of checks and balances.

This online exhibition offers insights into how the nation’s founding documents were forged and the role that imagination and vision played in the unprecedented creative act of forming a self–governing country. The exhibition includes a section on Creating the United States Constitution that contains images from Thomas Jefferson's copy of the Federalist Papers.

"I thank you for the Pamphlet and for the Gazette contained in your letter of the 30th Ult. For the remaining numbers of Publius, I shall acknowledge myself obliged, as I am persuaded the subject will be well handled by the Author."

"As the perusal of the political papers under the signature of Publius has afforded me great satisfaction, I shall certainly consider them as claiming a most distinguished place in my Library."

"I believe I never have yet mentioned to you that publication. It was undertaken last fall by Jay, Hamilton, and myself. The proposal came from the two former. The execution was thrown, by the sickness of Jay, mostly on the two others. Though carried on in concert, the writers are not mutually answerable for all the ideas of each other, there being seldom time for even a perusal of the pieces by any but the writer before they were wanted at the press, and sometimes hardly by the writer himself."

"I send you a Copy of the 1st. Edition of the “Federalist,” with the names of the writers prefixed to their respective numbers."

The 85 essays known as the Federalist Papers were originally published as letters in New York newspapers 1787-1788. This guide serves as an index to the letters in the historic newspapers and a list of holdings at the Library of Congress.

The Library of Congress's copy is Thomas Jefferson's, with his initials at signatures I and T in both volumes. With Jefferson's attributions of all the essays to John Jay, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton.

The Library of Congress has James Madison's copy, with his ms. notes and attributions.

"With respect to the Federalist, the three authors had been named to me. I read it with care, pleasure & improvement, and was satisfied there was nothing in it by one of those hands, & not a great deal by a second. It does the highest honor to the third, as being, in my opinion, the best commentary on the principles of government which ever was written."

John Jay, one of the nation's founding fathers, was born on December 12, 1745, to a prominent and wealthy family in the Province of New York.

James Madison, "Father of the Constitution" and fourth president of the United States, was born on March 16, 1751.

Alexander Hamilton, the first treasury secretary of the United States, was born on January 11 in either 1755 or 1757, on the Caribbean island of Nevis in the British West Indies.

Members of the Constitutional Convention signed the final draft of the Constitution on September 17, 1787.

Known as the Federalist Papers, the first in a series of eighty-five essays by "Publius," the pen name of Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, appeared in the New York Independent Journal on October 27, 1787.

The new United States of America adopted the Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution, confirming the fundamental rights of its citizens on December 15, 1791.

Lance Banning discusses the role of James Madison in the writing of "The Federalist Papers" at this symposium celebrating the 250th anniversary of the birth of Madison, the nation's fourth president. The presentation is a version of his essay from "James Madison: Memory, Service, and Fame" (1999).