.... And We're Back!

Ok, so that was a nice vacation (I wish). We Are Publius has been on hiatus these past 2 months because I've been busy setting up some other blogging projects (the Everyday Idealist, Blogworthy, and The List), and I've been up to my eyeballs in WFI work. I've also been doing some spring cleaning (mental and blog) because I felt I was getting off-topic with WAP (less confusing than calling it Publius, since there was that other guy...), but had nowhere else to go.

My hope is that the EI will solve that problem, and allow WAP to focus better on federalism (US and otherwise) and other issues of international and global law and governance, and therefore less on the US, except as it pertains to the global picture.

I'm also floating the idea of possibly getting some of my friends in the movement (World Federalist Movement, that is) to contribute. We shall see.

In the meantime, Federalist Paper No. 7 (remember those?) will be posted shortly (end of day), and I've got some topics I've been saving to write about.

I'm still growing into both blogging and We Are Publius - both what my intentions are and what it means to have set this responsibility for myself. Expect that I'll continue to make changes to both the format and content. I'd like to bring in more outside links and make a wider range of resources available. And as I develop the WFI's webpages, the resources I find most useful will be linked here.

I'm a little ambivalent about short posts with just links, but I don't see them disappearing. I read somewhere that a really good article is one about which you have nothing further to say. As part of Publius, I want to share those articles, even if I have nothing to add to the debate. But it is easy to substitute them for originial content, and I don't want to do that either. Either way (with or without short entries), I think I'd like my posting to be a tad more judicious.

Final housekeeping details: all old WAP posts are still available and I'm testing a calendar feature to manage Today in Federalism announcements.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

That Publius Guy (a word about the title)

I used to think that that the pen-name for the authors of the Federalist Papers was just a clever form of anonymity- dubbing themselves 'Publius', the voice of the concerned public. Not exactly. Hamilton, Madison and Jay didn’t just pull any authoritative-sounding Greek name out of a hat. Like most intellectuals of the day, they were at least passingly familiar with classical history. In fact, Publius was just another front in the PR war. In the Introduction to my copy of the Federalist Papers, Kesler writes:

[Hamilton] chose 'Publius' as the pseudonym, trumping his adversaries invocation of heroes of the late Roman republic (Brutus and Cato) with a reference to one of the founders and saviors of republican Rome- Publius Valerius Publicola, whose biography was paired with that of Solon in Plutarch's famous Parallel Lives. Solon, the democratic lawgiver of Athens, had lived to see his polity overthrown by a tyrant; but the Roman Publius firmly established his republic, which endured and expanded for centuries. Moreover, after making his laws, Solon had left Athens for ten years in order to avoid having to interpret his legislation. By contrast, Publius had remained in Rome in order to serve as consul, to improve (at a critical moment) the city's primitive republican laws, and to impart his own spirit of moderation, justice, and wisdom to the regime. What did this imply for the American Publius? At least this, that he wished to seize a fleeting moment favorable to constitution-making- when the wise and moderate men of the Federal Convention would have their greatest influence- in order to form a just and enduring republic in an extensive land.

So other than a nice history lesson, what does this mean for this blog? Why did I chose 'We Are Publius' as my title?

It certainly wasn't out of arrogance. I have no pretentions about being the next Madison. I can only dream of being half as good of a writer, and the number of important civic topics on which I am not entirely woefully ignorant is laughable. If the future of American republicanism is resting on my shoulders, then we are all in a lot of trouble.

Except, in a way, it is. I am an American citizen, and proud to be. I love my country. I think the 'American Experiment' is one of the most incredible achievements in human history, not because we always live up to our vision, but we constantly strive to. And we learn from our mistakes. We are a work in progress, and we're still young, but even 200 years later, we cannot be judged a failure. I hope we never are.

But inorder to ensure our success, we all need to be Publius. We need to serve as consuls (representatives, at all levels), improve our laws in the constant pursuit of justice tempered by mercy, and impart our own common-sense spirit of endeavor, of charity, of moderation and love of liberty.

And that's why I started this blog. This is my challenge to myself, and to others: to be a better citizen. Better informed, more thoughtful, more active, less complacent citizen, of America, and of the world. It won't be an easy task, and not one to be completed in a year, or two, or even a lifetime. But I'm not sure I can think of a better charge.

Welcome

Welcome to We Are Publius, a blog on federalism and citizenship. I plan to have at least semi-regular posting, so please check back for new entries.

The majority of the content here (at least by volume) will focus on a discussion of the Federalist Papers, the defense of the US Constitution by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay. This blog was originally intended as a guide to the Papers, exclusively, but there seems to be enough occasional incidents in federalism to justify expanding its purpose.

A word as to why on earth I decided such a project as the Federalist Papers: because they are there. I work with a group called Citizens for Global Solutions. Federalism is a guiding principle of CGS, and the Papers are some of the definitive documents of federalism. Still, I've never read them, and I bet most other people haven't either, and probably for the same reason: all 85, when compiled in a book, number at well over 400 pages, and they are in Colonial-era English, which makes them both beautifully and archaically written, and thus not easily given to pleasure reading.

So here I am, and We Are.

For those of you who are more ambitious/adventurous, the Federalist Papers are posted in PDF format here, grouped by subject. For the truly geeky, you can buy your very own copy of the Papers on Amazon- I use the Signet Classic edition.