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.

It is very interesting how much foresight our forefathers had. Thanks for sharing this.

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

One of my favorite Antifederalists is Luther Martin of Maryland. He may have been a heavy drinker, but he had a brilliant mind, and all of his dire predictions about a strong federal system of government have come to pass.
He was appalled when he arrived at the Constitutional Convention, thinking (like a lot of members) that it was just to tighten up the Articles of Confederation, only to discover that he would be locked inside a secret event, designed to create an all-powerful federal system.
They were ordered not to reveal anything to the outside world, but he went straight home and shouted it from the rooftops, bless him.