Page:Essays in Historical Criticism.djvu/165

This page needs to be proofread.

THE AUTHORSHIP OF THE FEDERALIST 145

ton's, but had listened to him in the New York Convention, and many times later in court, received from him once in Albany the assurance that the designation of the authorship of The Federalist in his possession was correct. Later, Chancellor Kent pasted a copy of the Washington Gazette list in his copy of The Federalist on a fly leaf opposite the Hamil- ton list, and added: "Mem". I have no doubt Mr. Jay wrote No. 64 on the Treaty Power. He made a speech on that subject in the N. Y. Convention, and I am told he says he wrote it. I suspect, therefore, from internal Ev[idence] the above to be the correct List, and not the one on the opposite Page."^ The Washington Gazette list coincides with Madison's own list except in regard to Nos. 17, 20, and 21. It is clear, then, that Chancellor Kent, in spite of Ham- ilton's assurance in regard to Nos. 50, 51, 52, 54-58, 62, and 63,2 ^as led by the weight of internal evidence to suspect that the Madison lists assigned the authorship correctly. This change took place before the publication of Madison's Writings and perhaps before the publication of the Journal or the Debates, Such a change by one who was a friend of Hamilton and a careful student of The Federalist^ as well as a great lawyer, is significant.

1 Dawson's The Fcederalist, cxl.-cxli. ; J. C. Hamilton's edition, cxii, note. 3 His Hamilton list assigned 49 and 53 to Madison.