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¶ … 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...
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…
References
Brutus No. 1. (1787). Retrieved from http://www.constitution.org/afp/brutus01.htm
Brutus No. 3. (1787). Retrieved from http://www.constitution.org/afp/brutus03.htm
Federalist No. 6 (n.d.). Retrieved from http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed06.asp
Federalist No. 7 (n.d.). Retrieved from http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed07.asp
Justices can make public pronouncements on issues that are important to the federal judiciary - not specific cases that come before the court, but general political and social issues. For example, the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, John Roberts, recently made a speech that warned about attacks against judicial independence. He was stating what the framers of the Constitution worried about hundreds of years ago when he said:
Hamilton's Arguments in Favor of the Debt and the Bank Jefferson would have no position against witch to argue had not Hamilton made the argument for the national debt so eloquently and so forcefully. Essentially, Hamilton and Jefferson entirely disagreed on the proper course to put the nation on a prosperous track. The greatest issue was whether the multitudinous colonial debts piled up by the individual colonies during and since the
evolution of political parties from the Federalists and Democratic-Republicans to the political parties that exist today. The binary differences between the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans led to the formation of the first political parties in the United States, and essentially created the norm for a two-party system. Even as the names and ideological platforms of American political parties changed over time, a two-party system has persisted and continues to characterize
Soon, anti-federalist movements emerged. The movement called Anti-Federalism thinkers revolved around the issue of government and the attribution of power. In their own view, the ideal configuration of the country would imply a decentralized system of government. More precisely, under the Articles of the Confederation, the states were given increased power to decide for their own on issues affecting them locally. From this point-of-view, the Anti-Federalists considered that the future
Conservatism in America Intellectually, it is indeed correct that post-World War II can be divided into two periods of conservatism: the period which emerged directly after the war (1945-1990) and the period from 1990 onwards. Traditionally as Ball explained, conservatism in America were opposed to rapid development and industrialization in the early 20th century: "From their point-of-view, this new mass society posed the same threat that democracy had always posed
The criticisms that de Tocqueville levels against American society, and especially against some of the particulars of its governance, continue in his discussion of the potential tyranny of the majority. Americans regard the majority much as Europeans viewed their king, according to de Tocqueville: it can do no wrong, and any wrong it does do is only due to bad advice or information. This subservience, according to de Tocqueville, creates