Jay urges, in the first of four essays, “calm and mature inquiries and reflections” as well as “cool, uninterrupted, and daily consultation.” He supports “sedate and candid consideration” of the Constitution, the product of the “mature deliberation” that took place in the summer of 1787. He favors the common ties of the Union and rejects the “novel idea” of seeking “safety and happiness” in three or four separate Confederacies.