I just finished a very good book: “A Brilliant Solution–Inventing the American Constitution” by Carol Berkin. Not only is it a vivid account of how the United States Constitution came into being; it also gives a glimpse at how well PR was understood and used by some of the Founding Fathers.

The short, short version: in the newly-born America of the 1780s, the Articles of Confederation weren’t getting the job done, so the 13 states got together to amend them (actually only 12 states sent delegates; “Rogue” Island sent no one). The 55 delegates met from May to September 1787 in Philadelphia and ended up not amending the Articles of Confederation, but completely replacing them with the document–the Constitution–they had created through nearly four months of meetings and debate.

After the convention, the Constitution had to be ratified by at least nine of the thirteen states to become official. Would it pass muster in nine states? No one knew for sure–the Constitution had many critics.

Enter public relations. Three men–Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay–took quills in hand and wrote a series of 85 articles explaining why the Constitution was a good idea. The articles were printed in newspapers with the author always listed only as “Publius.” (The true authors only became known after Hamilton’s death in 1804.)

[Side note: Hamilton was shot and killed in a duel by Aaron Burr, who was the sitting U.S. vice president at the time–a fact that never ceases to amaze me!]

Using what 215 years later would be called “spin,” the authors ran these articles under the title “The Federalist.” They would later come to be known as the Federalist Papers. The irony at the time was that they co-opted the term “Federalist,” when their position (advocating a strong central government as opposed to strong state governments) was actually anti-federalist!

It worked. People who were against the Constitution (labeled “Anti-Federalists” by the so-called “Federalists”) couldn’t get their act together to offer a better plan, and the Constitution was ratified by all 13 states, thus becoming the supreme law of the land. The rest, as they say, is history.

I find it fascinating how the Founding Fathers used public relations (the Federalist Papers) and branding (“Federalist” and “Anti-Federalist”) to steer events, further their cause and bring the Constitution to unanimous ratification.

It also makes me wonder: is it more than a coincidence that so many large companies whose job it is to persuade people do business on Madison Avenue?