Federalist No. 71

Alexander Hamilton, author of Federalist No. 71

Federalist No. 71 (Federalist Number 71) is an essay by Alexander Hamilton and the seventy-first of The Federalist Papers. It was published on March 18, 1788 under the pseudonym Publius, the name under which all The Federalist Papers were published. Its title is, "The Duration in Office of the Executive", and it is the fifth in a series of 11 essays discussing the powers and limitations of the Executive branch. It was published in the New York Packet in an effort to convince the people of New York to ratify the new Constitution.

Hamilton opines that the Constitutional four-year term limit set on the president has two purposes: To maintain personal firmness in the executive branch and to keep the executive branch stable at least for the four-year period.

External links

• The Federalist No. 71 Text