The Federalist No. 74, Alexander Hamilton, 1788 0.50

Type: Article · Used on: Letting Congress overturn a presidential pardon by a two-thirds vote of both chambers would reduce the use of the pardon power for private gain.

Where to find it	The Federalist, first published in New York newspapers
Belief Y	Letting Congress overturn a presidential pardon by a two-thirds vote of both chambers would reduce the use of the pardon power for private gain.	Truth 0.50

Beliefs this work bears on

#	Belief	Bears	Belief's truth
1	Letting Congress overturn a presidential pardon by a two-thirds vote of both chambers would reduce the use of the pardon power for private gain. What it shows: Hamilton argues that the pardon power belongs to one person rather than a body of men, because a single officer feels responsible for the choice while a legislature invites faction and can be swayed by the public mood.	weakens	0.50

The beliefs that cite this work, which way it bears on each, and what it shows there. A work earns its place by what it changes; whether it deserved to is argued below.

Quality ArgumentsHow media is scored →

Reasons to agree that the work makes its case well

#	Reason (pattern)	Truth	Conf	Link	Imp	Uniq	Score
Nothing here yet. Starter patterns: Accurate, Well reasoned, Well made, Primary sources.

Reasons to disagree

#	Reason (pattern)	Truth	Conf	Link	Imp	Uniq	Score
Nothing here yet. Starter patterns: Errors of fact, Weak reasoning, Poorly made, One-sided.

Total agree 0.00 · total disagree 0.00 · quality score 0.50

Quality is craft: is the work accurate, well reasoned and well made? Reasons here are about the work itself, never about whether the belief it speaks to is true.

Impact Arguments

Reasons to agree that the work has shaped the debate

#	Reason (pattern)	Truth	Conf	Link	Imp	Uniq	Score
Nothing here yet. Starter patterns: Widely cited, Changed minds on record, Reached a broad audience, Shaped policy.

Reasons to disagree

#	Reason (pattern)	Truth	Conf	Link	Imp	Uniq	Score
Nothing here yet. Starter patterns: Rarely cited, Preaching to the converted, Small audience, No trace in policy.

Total agree 0.00 · total disagree 0.00 · impact score 0.50

Impact is reach: has the work changed what people think, say or do about the topic? Reasons here are about influence, never about quality; a bad book can be influential.

Check table

1	The work	The Federalist No. 74, Alexander Hamilton, 1788
2	Type	Article
3	What it claims about the belief	Hamilton argues that the pardon power belongs to one person rather than a body of men, because a single officer feels responsible for the choice while a legislature invites faction and can be swayed by the public mood.
4	Computed quality	0.50 from 0 reason(s) to agree and 0 to disagree
5	Computed impact	0.50 from 0 reason(s) to agree and 0 to disagree
6	Bottom line, typed by the author after the tables above	The founding case for leaving Congress out of clemency deserves weight on the design question, though it was written before the modern record of pardons to a president's own circle.

The five steps, answered from the pages above. Only the one-sentence bridge and the bottom line are typed.

DefinitionsThe full explanation →

Quality: this page's truth score. Impact: the second score below. Y's page shows both on the work's row and multiplies them by Bears (a Type Media linkage page) and Imp (the work's importance page).
Truth of what the work says is not scored here: each finding it reports gets its own page in the Evidence Ledger.

Where This Page Is Used

Page	Table	As	Its truth
Letting Congress overturn a presidential pardon by a two-thirds vote of both chambers would reduce the use of the pardon power for private gain.	media	a row	0.50

Every page that reads this one. One claim, one home, every use visible.

Scoring EngineTruth scores →

Quantity	Value	How
Reasons to agree, total	0.00	sum of the agree side
Reasons to disagree, total	0.00	sum of the disagree side
Quality score	0.50	(agree + weight x starting point) / (agree + disagree + weight), starting point 0.50, weight 1.00
Impact score	0.50	the same rule applied to the impact table
ReasonRank	0.0001	how much of the site depends on this page: rank 1470 of 2173. The share of a walk that starts at the 162 beliefs and steps to the pages they read, with a 0.85 chance of stepping on each time
Work value	0.0001	ReasonRank x (1 - confidence): how much settling this page would be worth to everything above it
Completeness	no	at least one scored reason on each side (an importance page: at least one interest; an interest page: both readings filled)

Cite this page The Federalist No. 74, Alexander Hamilton, 1788. Idea Stock Exchange, media page federalist-no-74-alexander, truth 0.50, confidence 0%, revision 42c8344 of 2026-10-04. The revision is what makes this quotable: these numbers move as the argument is worked on, and rebuilding that revision reproduces them exactly.

Every number on this page as data: federalist-no-74-alexander.json. Constants: K = 1 · UNARG = 0.5 · DEFLINK = 1 · DEFIMP = 0.5 · DEFUNIQ = 1. A reason placed under a conclusion is presumed relevant until a linkage page says otherwise; the burden is on the challenger. The neutral start for importance, the wiki's own rule.

Every value here is computed from the tables above at build time. Nothing is typed.