Federalist Papers – Why are they in the Critical Skills Blog?

This blog is about “Critical Skills.”

So why are the summaries and analyses of the Federalist Papers appearing here?

The simple answer is that they are an important demonstration of the most important of the Critical Skills – the COMMUNICATIONS SKILL.

During the great debate from October 1787 through the Spring of 1788, the advocates for ratification (Federalists) of the newly written Constitution of the United States articulated their arguments. Similarly the opponents (Anti-Federalists) articulated their arguments.

There has been no more important debate in the history of the United States – specifically, should our government be grounded in the new Constitution.

During that time, individuals did not have access to Twitter, cable news, Facebook, radio, television, or any other sort of mass communications other than occasional speeches to limited audiences or the written word that could appear in the form of essays or letters to the editor of newspapers, journals, etc.

So the debate raged on in the form of opposing essays.

The power of the Communications skill was evident in both the advocates and opponents of the new Constitution and the written words by the authors are preserved for all of us to consider even today.