Two Visions of Government Federalist vs Anti Federalist

¶ … ratification of the U.S. Constitution pushed the nation to extremes: on the one hand were the Federalists, led by men like Alexander Hamilton and James Madison -- men who promoted the idea of a central government (the reasons for which they enumerated at length in their "Federalist" papers); on the other hand were the Anti-Federalists, led by men like Robert Yates and George Clinton (Yates being the presumptive author of the pseudonymously penned Anti-Federalist papers under the name of "Brutus"). Each side had its own view, not just of government, but of humanity and the way in which political society should be organized. This paper will present the underlying fundamental perspective of each side and show why I would have sided with the Anti-Federalists.

The Federalist plan to organize the federal government was to make it capable of overriding the individual autonomy and authority of the individual states, which the Federalists viewed as being potential threats to harmony and unity in the nation. Hamilton, writing in Federalist No. 6 and No. 7, described how states, when left to their own devices, will inevitably produce "dissensions between" themselves and engage in "domestic factions and convulsions" that would cause the unity of the nation to be destroyed just as soon as it had begun (Federalist No. 6). The fear-mongering Federalist goes on to conclude in Federalist No. 7 that without a strong central government based on a strong Constitution that favors federal authority, the individual states would cause the U.S. to become a pawn of foreign influences: "America, if not connected at all, or only by the feeble tie of a simple league, offensive and defensive, would, by the operation of such jarring alliances, be gradually entangled in all the pernicious labyrinths of European politics and wars" (Federalist No. 7). Thus, according to the Federalists, the federal government should have more authority than that of the individual states. The government should be representative but not divided or merely "loosely joined" by way of a confederation. In short, the Federalists wanted a Constitution that favored one central government over many, smaller state governments.

The Anti-Federalist position was that a strong central government would "lead to the subversion of liberty ... [to] despotism, or, what is worse, a tyrranic aristocracy" (Brutus No. 1). The Constitution proposed by the Federalists would allow such a government to come into being -- one that would "possess absolute and uncontrollable power, legislative, executive and judicial" and one which would preclude any "need of any intervention of the state governments" (Brutus No. 1). But perhaps no line better expresses the point of the Anti-Federalist sentiment than the following: "One man, or a few men, cannot possibly represent the feelings, opinions, and characters of a great multitude. In this respect, the new constitution is radically defective. -- The house of assembly, which is intended as a representation of the people of America, will not, nor cannot, in the nature of things, be a proper one -- sixty-five men cannot be found in the United States, who hold the sentiments, possess the feelings, or are acqainted with the wants and interests of this vast country (Brutus No. 3)." Thus, the Anti-Federalist perspective held that "representational" government such as was proposed by the Federalists was simply impractical: the nation was too large and too diverse to allow the fate of so many to be in the hands of so few.