FEDERALIST:
A REVIEW OF MR. PAUL LEICESTER FORD'S ARGUMENT
In the Introduction to his edition of The Federalist^ Mr. Paul Leicester Ford offers a different solution from the one reached in the foregoing essay, and the method employed is also different. His conclusion is at variance with all the lists, while mine is in accord with Madison's testimony. The amount of evidence necessary to prove a conclusion contrary to the combined testimony of Hamilton and Madi- son is obviously much greater than that required to prove a case in harmony with the assertions of either one.
Mr. Ford begins by objecting to conclusions drawn from comparisons of language and thought. A general objection of this sort has little weight. Every piece of historical criti- cism must stand or fall on its own merits. Internal criti- cism may be applied in a rash or an ignorant fashion, but it must be met point by point. Mr. Ford has failed to examine my method with care, or he would not have made the com- parison about the Esprit des Lois, nor alleged that I quoted Madison's speeches in the Virginia convention to prove that
1 This part of Mr. Ford's Introduction, xxx.-xxxix, was first published in the American Historical Review in July, 1897, ostensibly as a reply to my essay in the April number, and was accompanied by the larger part of the present paper in the form of a running comment. It wiU be conceded, I think, that some of his assertions were proved absolutely to be mistaken, and that the basis of others was seriously undermined. Notwithstanding this, Mr. Ford reprinted his article nearly a year later in his edition of The Federalist without corrections or defence. As his edition will deservedly have a wide circulation and a long life, I have decided to reprint here my strictures on his discussion of the authorship of the disputed numbers. This will accoout for the form of the presen
