In the words of Publius—the pen name chosen by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay to unify their argument and to invoke the memory of Publius Valerius Publicola, the savior of the early Roman republic—it would be up to the American people "to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force."
