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Mar 4, 2020 · The Anti- Federalists had a strong distrust of government power. A national government with too much power was, as far as they were concerned, a pathway to government oppression. Just over two hundred and thirty years ago, a convention gathered in Philadelphia to consider improvements to the United States’ first constitution, The Articles of ...
- The Constitution's Alleged Deficiencies
- Leaders and Adherents
- Ratification Debate Dynamics
- Legacy
- Bibliography
The Constitution was made public in September 1787 and faced opposition almost immediately. Controversy exists over the primary motivation of the anti-Federalists. Some think they opposed the Constitution primarily for economic reasons. Others argue that they wanted to protect their own political power. Still others find that they were influenced m...
Some of the nation's best-known political leaders were among those who opposed the Constitution. Famed orator Patrick Henry led the anti-Federalists in Virginia, joined by the author of the Virginia declaration of rights, George Mason, who had attended the Constitutional Convention but refused to sign the document. Governor George Clinton organized...
Several practical matters complicated the anti-Federalists' quest to alter or defeat the Constitution. The call to form a convention came from the Federalists. They were interested in making radical changes to the structure of the national government and were highly motivated to attend the Philadelphia Convention. Anti-Federalists wanted less far-r...
Though the Constitution was ratified, the anti-Federalists did not leave the fight empty-handed. They expected that the recommended amendments would be seriously considered even though the push for a second convention failed to have an impact. Yet few anti-Federalists were elected to the new Congress. With massive Federalist majorities in both the ...
Banning, Lance. "Republican Ideology and the Triumph of the Constitution, 1789–1793." William and Mary Quarterly,3rd ser., 31 (1974): 167–188. Cornell, Saul. "The Changing Historical Fortunes of the Anti-Federalists." Northwestern University Law Review84 (1989): 39–73. ——. The Other Founders: Anti-Federalists and the Dissenting Tradition in America...
The main arguments under scrutiny were how much control and power should be vested in the singular national government. Antifederalists, as they came to be called, were the voices warning of tyranny and a new monarchy if too much power was vested in a national body.
Aug 8, 2019 · The word that was usually used at the time was that the constitution would produce a consolidated national government. The anti-federalists had a couple different meetings that they ascribe to consolidation. Sometimes, they meant it would simply mean the total absorption of power by the national government.
Anti-Federalists argued that the proposed Constitution would take from the states their principal means of defense against federal usurpation. The Federalists responded that fears of federal oppression were overblown, in part because the American people were armed and would be almost impossible to subdue through military force.
While the Federalists argued for a stronger national government, the Anti-Federalists defended a vision of America rooted in powerful states. The Anti-Federalists feared that the new Constitution gave the new national government too much power. And that this new government—led by a new group of distant, out-of-touch political elites—would:
The result, Anti-federalists believed, would be a powerful tyranny, in which the national government exercised its virtually unlimited powers to oppress the people and deprive them of their liberty. “A free republic,” Brutus concluded, “cannot long subsist over a country of the great extent of these states.”.