New York

Abstract

New York has long played a prominent role in the constitutional history of the United States. Notably, The Federalist Papers—a series of newspaper articles penned pseudonymously by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay that are widely regarded as the great exegesis of American political theory—were written to persuade the people of New York to ratify the nation's current organic law. The fear was that, without New York's approval, the U.S. Constitution would not be enacted. This chapter chronicles New York's rich constitutional history and the impact that history had on the independence of the state's judiciary.