Federalist No. 5 is an essay by John Jay

John Jay

John Jay was an American politician, statesman, revolutionary, diplomat, a Founding Father of the United States, and the first Chief Justice of the United States ....

, the fifth of the Federalist Papers

Federalist Papers

The Federalist Papers are a series of 85 articles or essays promoting the ratification of the United States Constitution. Seventy-seven of the essays were published serially in The Independent Journal and The New York Packet between October 1787 and August 1788...

. It was published on November 10, 1787 under the pseudonym

Pseudonym

A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...

 Publius, the name under which all the Federalist Papers were published. It is the last of four essays by Jay discussing the protection of the United States from dangerous foreign influence, especially military force. It is titled, "The Same Subject Continued: Concerning Dangers from Foreign Force and Influence."

Summary of the argument

In this paper, Jay argues that the American people can learn a lot from the troubles Great Britain had when it was divided up into individual states. When divided, envy and jealousy ran rampant. Try as you might to make each nation-state equal, eventually one will begin to grow more powerful than the others (assumed by Jay to be the north), they in turn will grow jealous and distrustful of each other. Alliances with different nations may be forged by different states, tearing America apart at the seams. A single nation would be 'joined in affection and free from all apprehension of different interests' and as such a much more formidable nation.

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