Paraphrases

Federalist No. 65 - The Senate Judges Impeachment Trials   paraphrased into modern English by Alexander Hamilton, March 7, 1788 To: the People of the State of New York: The rest of the powers that the new Constitution specifically gives to the Senate are helping the President appoint officers, and acting as jury during impeachment trials. In making official appointments, the President has the main role -- we'll be discussing the details of that in the Federalist Paper about the President's powers. So we'll focus here on the Senate's role in trying impeachments. Gathering a qualified jury for impeachments trials is as necessary as it is difficult when your government is completely elected by the people. The cases the Senate would be trying would be offenses involving the misconduct of public officials -- I mean cases in which they've abused or violated some public trust. The cases will be of a political nature, since they relate mostly to offenses done direct...

Federalist No. 46 - State Governments vs Federal Governments; Militia Protects from Federal Government    paraphrased into modern English by James Madison, Jan 29, 1788 To: the People of the State of New York, I will continue the subject of the last Federalist Paper by asking which the people are more likely to prefer and support -- the federal government, or the State governments? Although they have different methods of being elected, both are considerably dependent on the multitude of US citizens. I'll assume this is true of the federal government, and provide evidence of that in another Paper. The fact is, the federal and State governments are actually different representatives and guardians of the people, with different authorities, designed for different purposes. Opponents of the proposed Constitution seem to have forgotten the people altogether in their arguments of this subject. They seem to view these different governments, not only as mutual rivals and enemies...