The authors of the Federalist Papers used the pseudonym Publius when publishing their essays.
Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay wrote the essays in 1787 and 1788 to support ratification of the proposed United States Constitution. They published the articles under the shared name Publius rather than signing them individually.
Hamilton wrote most of the essays, Madison wrote a substantial portion, and Jay contributed several before illness limited his participation. The name Publius referred to Publius Valerius Publicola, a Roman statesman associated with the founding of the Roman Republic.
The pseudonym allowed the essays to present a unified argument even though three different writers produced them. Their original newspaper publication did not always identify the authors, and scholars later established authorship through correspondence and other evidence. The Federalist Papers are commonly cited by constitutional scholars, but they are advocacy essays rather than the Constitution’s legal text.