Ch. 1.1. The Antifederalists: Introduction

(Continued from Lloyd.)

The Antifederalists

It will help in our understanding of who the Antifederalists were to know that in 1787, the word “federal” had two meanings.

The first meaning had a long, international history of usage. This sense of “federal” referred to a set of governmental principles that was understood to be in opposition to national or consolidated principles. Thus the Articles of Confederation was understood to be a federal arrangement: Congress was limited to powers expressly granted, the states qua states were represented equally regardless of the size of their population, and the amending of the document required the unanimous consent of the state legislatures.

The second meaning of “federal” was a recent, American usage that, confusingly, was the opposite of the above meaning. In the 1780s, those American leaders who wanted a stronger central government, such as George Washington, Gouverneur Morris, and James Madison, began to appropriate for themselves the term “federal.” Their successful efforts to do so then led to their opponents being called “antifederalists.” Such leaders, including Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, and Roger Sherman, opposed or questioned proposals for a stronger central or national government, and they remained more attached to state government. These “Antifederalists” would have preferred to be known as democratic republicans or federal republicans.

Whereas many prominent Federalists unified around the campaign to reform the Articles and to replace them with the Constitution drawn up in Philadelphia, the Antifederalists were much less unified. None of them did what Hamilton, Madison, and Jay did, getting together to write a set of linked essays to argue that the Constitution should be either rejected or modified before adoption. Thus there is no one book to which the modern reader can turn to and say, “Here’s the Antifederalist (Papers).” Their work is vast and varied and, for the most part, uncoordinated.

The three most influential Antifederalist authors were all known only by their pseudonyms. Sixteen essays by “Brutus” were published in The New York Journal between October 1787 and April 1788. He is presumed to be a New York Antifederalist, and may have been Robert Yates; his essays are best known for his critiques of the proposed federal judiciary, and are also among the best representations of the general Antifederalist critique of the Constitution (see below). The eight letters of “Cato,” who was presumed to be New York Governor George Clinton, and who focused especially on executive powers, were published in The New York Journal between September 1787 and January 1788. A third major Antifederalist was the “Federal Farmer,” who was probably Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, and who focused his criticisms on the proposed legislative branch.

Three Kinds of Antifederalists

There are three kinds of Antifederalists, but each voice is an important one in the creation and adoption of the Constitution and the subsequent unfolding of American politics. The first kind 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. They achieved considerable success in modifying this national plan back in the direction of federal principles. Thus, in the final document, the powers of Congress are listed, each state is represented equally in the Senate. After ensuring that the Constitution itself was partly national and partly federal, they supported its adoption 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 had some deep concerns about the potential of the Constitution to lead to the concentration of power in the new government. We are talking about people such as Abraham or Robert Yates (Abraham was Robert’s uncle, and either one may have written under the pseudonym “Brutus”), George Clinton (“Cato”) in New York, and Richard Henry Lee (probably the “Federal Farmer”) in Virginia. 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 potential to generate a consolidated government over a large territory in which one of the branches of government 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. Their views entered the amended Constitution by way of James Madison and the First Congress.

The third and final group of Antifederalists was those who wanted as little deviation from the Articles as possible and saw the partly-national and partly-federal compromise as totally unsustainable. Ratifying delegates like Patrick Henry come to mind, as well as George Mason and Elbridge Gerry. They started off as warm supporters of a stronger national government but within twelve months had become open opponents of even the friendly amendments proposed by the second type of Antifederalist. This third type of Antifederalist’s legacy is probably to be found in the Calhoun movement in favor of secession from the American founding.