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Rh been repeated at the beginning of each essay to facilitate quick reference. The date of publication of each number, with the name of the newspaper in which it appeared, has been for the first time obtained and prefixed to each essay. Where, in the edition of 1788 the number was changed from the newspaper text, the latter is added, in brackets, that the endless confusion hitherto arising from this contradiction may be henceforth avoided or understood. All text of The Federalist which relates to the purely temporary issues of 1788, and much of the historical part, both of which are now of slight value, have been printed in smaller type. For the benefit of the student, the text has for the first time been annotated, both with a view to making obscure allusions plain, and to the elucidation of the text that intervening history has made possible.

To the text of The Federalist proper there have been added in the Appendix the articles of confederation and the constitution, and to the latter are appended references to the decisions of the Supreme Court bearing on each clause, with three of the most important decisions in an abridged form. All important amendments since proposed have been included in the belief that in them are best expressed the points of friction over that instrument. For this same reason are included the opinions of Hamilton and Jefferson on a national bank, the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions of 1798, the South Carolina Ordinance of Nullification and Jackson's Proclamation of 1832, the South Carolina Ordinance of Secession and Declaration of Independence, the constitution of the Confederate States, and the act creating the Electoral Commission.

Finally, for the first time The Federalist has been thoroughly indexed; an addition which leads the editor, from personal experience of the previous difficulty of consultation and use of the work, to believe that no book of equal importance has so needed such an improvement. .