Anti-Federalistic View on Independence and Federalism

As founding fathers debated the merits and political philosophy of the Constitution, men who fought together against tyranny found themselves of opposing sides of this great debate. Federalists and Anti-Federalists passionately argued their political beliefs and philosophies, which can still be felt today. In favor of ratifying the Constitution were the Federalists. One of the federalist’s primary argument for the Constitution is that with a union each state would be secure because a “great body of people in every state, and one, has no adversaries.” In the Federalist Papers, Hamilton and other founding fathers argue that this layer of additional security and group cohesiveness will strengthen the government and preserve liberty and individual prosperity. Not only from foreign powers, the idea of a group of united states would prevent any internal factions and alliances from developing.

Also, under a united federal government, Federalists believed a majority rule would be able to protect against small ruling factions. As Madison stated, when “the form of popular government … enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest both the public good and the rights of other citizens.” After breaking free from the tyranny of British rule, founding fathers were very wary of small, controlling factions dominating politics and running the government. They believed that through a democratic republic, an educated populace would be able to collectively steer the government in the right direction.

On their side, the Anti-Federalists stood against the ratification of the Constitution. Among the opponents of the Constitution stood a diverse group of thinkers with an “extraordinary heterogeneity” in their beliefs against the Constitution – there was no single, unifying political philosophy but rather a variety of reasons they were against it. Some men were anti-Federalists because they were against adopting the Constitution without the guarantee that additional amendments (mainly, the Bill of Rights) could be ratified. Many Anti—Federalists could be understood as post-Colonial conservatives who believed the Constitution would disrupt the status quo and threaten four “cherished values: to law, to political stability, to the principles of the Declaration of Independence, and to federalism.”

Other Anti-Federalists expressed legal concern over the legitimacy of the Philadelphia Convention, as it was convened solely to attack the Articles of Confederation and could be disruptive to the newly formed, tenuous political stability on the young country. They felt as though they were patriotically defending the new nation, believing that Articles of Confederation more wholly captured the spirit of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution was opening the door to a departure from what they had fought for. They believed that under federalism individual statehood was primary and each state equal and therefore, the “defense of the federal character of the American union was most prominent article of the Anti-Federalist doctrine. These men believed that the Constitution, in creating on complete, overarching national government, would destroy statehood and the federalism they believed in. They feared that the federal government created under the Constitution was capable of acting at its own, sole direction, making decisions that states would be bound to.

Lastly, Anti-Federalists were against the ratification of the Constitution because they believed that the preservation of an individual’s freedom lay with independent, strong states. This belief stemmed from the Anti-Federalist idea that “free, republican governments could only extend over a relatively small territory with a homogenous population.” The uniform rule of a national government would result in inequality in different parts of the country because the population is diverse and would have different needs. Although the Anti-Federalists ultimately lost the debate, their conservative political philosophy and fight for state’s rights continues to play a major part in American discourse.