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The Anti-federalist Papers - incubator of the Bill of Rights (pdf download)

Posted by freedomforall 6 years ago to History
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"The second meaning of “federal” had a particular American character. In the 1780s, those folks who wanted a firmer and more connected union became known as federal men. People like George Washington., Gouverneur Morris, James Madison., Alexander Hamilton., and James Wilson. were known as federal men who wanted a firmer federal, or even national, union. And those people like Patrick Henry., Richard Henry Lee., George Clinton., Melancton Smith., and Roger Sherman., who opposed or who raised doubts about the merits of a firmer and more energetic union acquired the name of antifederal men who opposed an inclination to strengthen the ties of Union with a focus on centralized direction."
"The Antifederalists would have preferred to be known as democratic republicans or federal republicans, but they acquired the name antifederal, or Anti-federal, or Antifederal as a result of the particular events of American history. If we turn to principles to define what they stood for, the content of their position was what was known in history as an attachment to federal principles: a commitment to local government and limited general government, frequent elections and rotation in office, and to writing things down because our liberties are safer as a result."


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  • Posted by 6 years ago in reply to this comment.
    Public (government) school makes certain that the statist side of the story is pounded into every child, and that the side of history that helped keep individual liberty is conspicuously avoided.
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  • Posted by mminnick 6 years ago
    Many people have heard of the Federalist Papers and some have read one or more of them. Almost no one has heard of the Anti-Federalist Papers and very few have read even one of them.
    This is a shame. They should be reead and discussed along with the Fereralist papers. Both played an important part in the ratification of the Constitution by the early 13 states.
    +1
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  • Posted by 6 years ago
    The first kind of Antifederalist is represented by politicians such as Roger Sherman. and Oliver Ellsworth. of Connecticut. They entered the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia with a suspicious disposition toward the Virginia Plan and its attempt to give sweeping powers to Congress and to reduce the role of the states in the new American system. This first group achieved considerable success in modifying this national plan back in the direction of federal principles. Thus, thanks to anti-federalists, in the final document, the powers of Congress are listed, each state is represented equally in the Senate and composed of Senators elected by the state legislatures, the president is to be elected by a majority of the people plus a majority of the states, the Constitution is to be ratified by the people of nine states, and the Constitution is to amended by 2/3 of the House plus 2/3 of the Senate plus 3/4 of the state legislatures. Put differently, Sherman and Ellsworth secured the federal principles in the very Constitution itself and thus the Constitution is actually partly national and partly federal. In the end, Sherman and Ellsworth. supported the adoption of the Constitution and thus secured the presence of the Antifederalist position in the American tradition.

    The second kind of Antifederalist is one who was not privy to the debate in Philadelphia, and has some deep concerns about the POTENTIALITY of the Constitution to lead to the concentration of power in the new government. We are talking about people such as Melancton Smith, Abraham Yates (Brutus), and George Clinton in New York, Richard Henry Lee (Federal Farmer) in Virginia, Samuel Bryant (Centinel) in Pennsylvania, and John Winthrop (Agrippa) in Massachusetts. They warned that without certain amendments, including a bill of rights that stated clearly what the new government could and could not do, the new Constitution had the POTENTIALITY to generate a consolidated government over a large territory in which one of the branches of government——the Presidency and the Judiciary were the leading candidates——would come to dominate. They warned that the partly national and partly federal Constitution would veer naturally in the direction of wholly national unless certain precautions were put in place to secure the partly-national and partly-federal arrangement.
    (Above from https://teachingamericanhistory.org/r...

    Without the work (and writings) of Anti-federalists, it's likely that our freedoms would have quickly evaporated like raindrops in the Sahara.
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