The Federalist Papers

The federalist papers are a series of articles defending the US consitution. It is not a "story" and is a struggle to get through. (It seems to be the type of source that you would use to extract "quotes" to support some viewpoint.) Many of the points are still applicable today. Some of the points are verified in the negative. In defending the president, one key point is that access to repeat elections is unfettered. Oops. Maybe the "lame duck" second term presidents we have is part of our problems today. Also, today's representative constituency has far exceeded the "optimal size".

The dates at the start of each "paper" help drill in the fact that the creation of the USA was a long process. A dozen years after 1776, the American continent is still far from having a unified country. At the time it was still much like an infant European Union. (Perhaps we should send this to the EU as they struggle to create a unified system while still maintaining autonomy.)

In the discussion of judges, the authors attempt to counteract the perceived weakness of the judiciary. Well, the judges have managed to take much of that into there own hands today. (And we are now having the opposite issue.) There are also many other tidbits of the debate. Some are still right-on today, while others are long since dated. These guys obviously spent a lot of time thinking about and supporting their pet cause, the US constitution.