If you’ve ever tried to figure out “who wrote the Brutus papers,” you know you’re stepping into one of the juiciest attribution puzzles of America’s founding era. “Brutus”—the fiercest, most systematic Anti-Federalist voice—published sixteen essays in the New-York Journal between October 1787 and April 1788, challenging the proposed Constitution on everything from the Necessary and Proper Clause to the scope of the federal judiciary. The identity of Brutus has never been conclusively proven, but several New Yorkers have strong claims. Before we weigh the contenders, a quick word on what Brutus 1 and its successors argued—because their warnings echo loudly in American politics and constitutional law today.
Brutus’s opening salvo (often taught in civics classes as “Brutus 1”) warned that the Constitution’s Necessary and Proper Clause, the Supremacy Clause, and an independent federal judiciary together pointed toward consolidation—far more national power and far less state authority than the document’s supporters admitted. He also doubted that a free republic could thrive across such a vast territory.
Below is a tour of the leading candidates—Robert Yates, Melancton Smith, John Williams, Thomas Tredwell, and Abraham Yates Jr.—including why each has been linked to Brutus, what else they wrote or said in the ratification debates, and how Brutus’s predictions have aged.
The Candidates for Who Wrote the Brutus Papers
1) Robert Yates (1738–1801)
Who he was. A New York lawyer and judge, Yates served as a delegate to the Philadelphia Convention but left in July 1787, later becoming Chief Justice of the New York Supreme Court. He kept extensive notes on the Convention, published posthumously in 1821 as Secret Proceedings and Debates of the Convention Assembled at Philadelphia.
Why people think he’s Brutus. For generations, Yates was the default attribution. He left the Convention in protest, wrote cogent anti-Constitution pieces, and had the stature (and the motive) to launch a major pseudonymous series right as New York’s ratification battle heated up. Institutional summaries still list Yates as the most commonly credited author.
Related writings & speeches. Beyond the Brutus attribution, Yates’s enduring contribution is the 1821 publication of his Convention notes—an indispensable anti-Federalist-leaning window into the framing debates.
The case against. Modern stylometric and contextual studies have raised doubts, arguing that Yates’s known newspaper essays (under the pen name “Sydney/Sidney”) differ stylistically from Brutus.
2) Melancton Smith (1744–1798)
Who he was. A Poughkeepsie, New York merchant-lawyer, Smith was the indispensable Anti-Federalist at New York’s ratifying convention—sharp, organized, and relentless in debate with Alexander Hamilton. His speeches about representation (warning of a “natural aristocracy” dominating Congress) became classics of the Anti-Federalist canon.
Why he’s a top contender. A Liberty Fund volume devoted to the “Melancton Smith Circle” argues—via computational and contextual analysis—that Smith is the most likely author of both Brutus and the Federal Farmer letters (traditionally attributed to Richard Henry Lee).
Related writings & speeches. Smith’s convention speeches survive in notes and printed debates and map closely to Brutus’s themes: fear of consolidation, insistence on a larger, more middle-class House of Representatives, and skepticism toward life-tenured federal judges.
The caution. Some historians balk at the idea that one person wrote both Brutus and Federal Farmer; the alternative is that Smith heavily influenced a small circle that produced them. Either way, Smith remains near the center of the strongest modern case.
3) John Williams (1752–1806)
Who he was. A physician-turned-militia general and influential upstate politician from Salem, New York, Williams served in the state assembly and senate and later in Congress; he was an Anti-Federalist delegate at New York’s ratification convention.
Why he’s in the running. Historian Joel A. Johnson’s widely noted essay – “‘Brutus’ and ‘Cato’ Unmasked: General John Williams’s Role in the New York Ratification Debate, 1787–88” – makes the affirmative case that Williams authored both the Cato and Brutus essays, tying the texts to his politics, geography, and paper trail.
Related writings & speeches. Williams’s speeches at the Poughkeepsie, New York convention survive in contemporary reports; his rhetoric on representation and the need for amendments line up with Brutus’s anxieties.
The caution. Williams’s candidacy is newer than Yates’s and less widely adopted than Smith’s; still, the Johnson article keeps his case very much alive in current scholarship.
4) Thomas Tredwell (1743–1831)
Who he was. A Princeton-educated New York lawyer, Anti-Federalist convention delegate, and later member of Congress.
Why he sometimes comes up. Tredwell has occasionally been floated as Brutus; TeachingAmericanHistory.org even lists him as “possibly Brutus.” In the late 19th century, editor Paul Leicester Ford tentatively pointed toward Tredwell before backing off. Today, his candidacy is regarded as weak.
5) Abraham Yates Jr. (1724–1796)
Who he was. Albany’s leading Anti-Federalist, a powerful local official and pamphleteer who wrote under pseudonyms like “Rough Hewer.”
Why he appears on lists. Some overviews casually equate Abraham Yates with Brutus; more careful treatments note that Saul Cornell has proposed him, though the evidentiary case is contested and less developed than those for Smith or Williams.
So…Who Wrote Brutus 1?
If you’re asking “who wrote Brutus 1,” the safest answer is: we don’t know for sure. The traditional favorite remains Robert Yates, but much recent scholarly analysis points to Melancton Smith, with a robust alternative case for John Williams. Thomas Tredwell and Abraham Yates Jr. still surface, but with much less scholarly support. In a nutshell: Yates is the longstanding attribution; Smith is the modern stylometric/contextual favorite; Williams is the best single-author challenger argued in print.
What Brutus Warned About—and What We See Today
Brutus’s essays weren’t abstract philosophy; they were a point-by-point prediction machine about how the Constitution would operate in practice. A few themes, with what actually happened:
1) The Necessary and Proper Clause + Supremacy Clause would expand federal power.
In Brutus 1, he argues these clauses, coupled with an energetic Congress and a sympathetic judiciary, would “infallibly” move the system toward consolidation. That framed the most important early doctrinal landmark: McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), where the Supreme Court blessed implied powers (e.g., creating a national bank) and rejected a state tax on it – exactly the kind of federal supremacy Brutus feared.
Ever since that landmark decision, the Court built on that logic to sustain very broad federal laws under the Commerce Clause—think Wickard v. Filburn (1942) and Gonzales v. Raich (2005) – both illustrating how national policy can reach deep into intrastate activity. Brutus wouldn’t have been surprised.
2) A powerful federal judiciary would tilt toward national authority.
In essays Brutus XI and XV, Brutus warned that life-tenured federal judges, interpreting the Constitution by its “spirit,” would enlarge national power and marginalize state courts. Leading historians of the founding era widely acknowledge that, as a matter of trend, Supreme Court jurisprudence has often favored national power over states.
3) A peacetime standing army is dangerous to liberty.
Brutus (No. 8) attacked the idea of a peacetime “standing army.” The founding generation generally distrusted standing armies, which is why the Constitution limited Army appropriations to two years at a time. Yet by the early 1800s, the United States made the critical decision to maintain at least a small permanent Regular Army in peace and war—a clear win for nationalists over Anti-Federalist caution.
4) Taxing and borrowing power would lead to heavy national finance.
Brutus flagged Congress’s “unlimited” revenue and borrowing powers. No one in 1788 could have pictured the scale of modern public finance, but the national figures speak for themselves. As of September 2, 2025, total federal debt stood at $37.41 trillion (Treasury’s “Debt to the Penny” dataset). FRED reports total public debt at $36.21 trillion at the end of Q2 2025 (series GFDEBTN). Brutus’s anxiety about centralized fiscal muscle hasn’t exactly faded.
5) An extended republic strains representation.
Brutus doubted a sprawling republic could keep representatives close to the people. Melancton Smith hammered the same point in the Poughkeepsie Convention of 1788 – fearing a Congress dominated by the “natural aristocracy,” too far removed from the middle class. Whether you see this realized in Washington’s professionalized politics is partly in the eye of the beholder, but Smith’s and Brutus’s rhetoric about scale, class, and distance still animates debates over term limits, lobbying, and campaign finance. press-pubs.uchicago.edu
What to Read if You Want More In-depth Study
- Brutus 1, XI, XV (and more) at TeachingAmericanHistory.org, with extended commentary, footnotes, study questions, as well as a Teacher’s Guide.
- Yates’s Convention Notes (Secret proceedings and debates of the Convention assembled at Philadelphia, in the year 1787 : for the purpose of forming the Constitution of the United States of America) for the Anti-Federalist framing mindset.
- New York Convention Debates (Smith’s notes) to see Smith in action.
- The Melancton Smith Circle (Liberty Fund) for the modern computational and contextual case about authorship.
- Joel A. Johnson’s essay making the case for John Williams as Brutus (and Cato). ‘Brutus’ and ‘Cato’ Unmasked.
Bottom Line – Who Wrote the Brutus Papers?
If you’re optimizing for probability, the best short answer to “who wrote Brutus” is: likely Melancton Smith or Robert Yates, with a serious scholarly challenge from John Williams. If you’re optimizing for humility, the honest answer to “who wrote the Brutus papers” is: we still don’t know. What we do know is that Brutus’s predictions—especially about the Necessary and Proper Clause, the Supremacy Clause, and the federal judiciary—map remarkably well onto two centuries of constitutional development, from McCulloch forward to the great commerce cases of the 20th and 21st centuries.
And if you came here wondering “who wrote Brutus 1,” now you’ve got the leading suspects, the evidentiary standards, and the historical context to judge for yourself.
Read The Anti-Federalist Papers.
