September 2, 2025 • 20 mins
Dr. Carrese returns to explore the Anti-Federalists, an overlooked yet crucial group of America's founders whose opposition to the Constitution led directly to the Bill of Rights and continues to shape constitutional debates today.
• Anti-Federalists opposed the 1787 Constitution because they feared the federal government would become too powerful and remote from the people
• They criticized the presidency as concentrating too much power in one person elected for a lengthy four-year term
• The Senate, the independent judiciary, and the small House of Representatives were viewed as threats to democratic representation
• Key Anti-Federalist writers included Federal Farmer, Brutus, and Sentinel, alongside notable revolutionary figures like Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams
• Historian Herbert Storing's "The Complete Anti-Federalist" finally collected these critical writings in the 1970s, nearly 200 years after the founding
• The Anti-Federalists' emphasis on civic virtue, republican self-government, and local control continues to influence debates about federalism
• Without their persistent criticisms, America would not have the Bill of Rights protecting individual liberties
Listen to our previous episode on the Federalist Papers to understand both sides of this foundational constitutional debate.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome back everyone .
I am excited about today'stopic because I feel like this
group of people doesn't gettalked about as much as always.
We have Dr Carice back with usand Dr Carice, today we're going
to talk about theanti-Federalists, right?
So who were the most importantanti-Federalists and why were
(00:22):
their ideas so important?
And we kind of touched on it ina previous episode, but I want
to go more in depth with ittoday.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Yes, thank you, liz, this does.
This topic deserves moreattention than it usually
receives.
Partly it's because of theanti-word and the name of these
founders of our Constitutionalthe anti-federalists.
And the anti-federalists werethe opponents to the
ratification of the 1787constitution and because they
(00:52):
lost, so to speak.
The 1787 constitution wasratified by the requisite number
of states and eventually by allthe original 13 states.
Well, the Anti-Federalists werethe losers, and why do we care
about losers, right?
So our challenge is to see that, while the name is not great
(01:13):
branding and I'll talk aboutthis Anti-Federalists their
contribution to the founding ofAmerican constitutionalism is
very important and they deserveto be considered founding
fathers.
And I'll cite a great 20thcentury scholar who made this
argument.
So this is paradoxical Criticsof our Constitution deserve to
(01:33):
be considered founding fathers.
Well, one obvious piece ofevidence for this is that
without the anti-federalists andtheir written and persistent
criticisms of the new proposedConstitution, we would not have
the Bill of Rights.
And, in effect, the Bill ofRights was fairly certain to be
(01:54):
a reality by the end of theratification process itself.
Sort of gentleman agreementshad occurred in several
important state ratificationdebates, saying, look if you
vote to ratify this Constitution, me a real advocate of it, a
Federalist as they were called.
I pledge to you that amendmentswill be put forward immediately
(02:15):
under the amendment procedurein the Constitution to establish
a Bill of Rights.
So that's a big, complicatedargument.
But to step back for a minute.
The Anti-Federalists are theopponents because they believe
the new proposed Constitutionwas establishing would establish
too strong a government.
The new federal government wasgoing to be too remote from
(02:41):
democratic consent.
Offices that were too powerful.
These were offices, said theAnti-Federalists, like what
you'd see in an aristocracy or amonarchy.
And eventually this new federalgovernment under the new 1787
Constitution would overwhelm thestate governments.
(03:01):
You wouldn't have a federalrepublic, a republic made up of
independent state governments.
You would have one consolidatedAmerican government.
And why did they say this?
Well, if you think about justtake the single executive office
of the presidency that hascontrol over the entire war
(03:23):
powers, commander-in-chiefpowers, and over a lot of
foreign affairs andadministration, execution of
domestic affairs, well, that's alot of power in one office and
it's a single person.
And that single person iselected for a long term four
years and in the originalConstitution that office was not
elected by the people, it wasselected by a college of
(03:47):
electors, as it was referred to.
Okay, so there's one criticismof the Antifederos.
Second one is that the Senate,in the legislature proposed by
the 1787 Constitution, the upperhouse, the Senate, well, that's
taking power away from thepeople's house, from the house
of representatives.
(04:08):
The Senate has distinct powersabout treaties and about
confirming judges proposed bythe executive and by confirming
other offices proposed by theexecutive.
So this, this Senate, togetherwith the executive, that's way
that's.
That's way too powerful and waytoo remote from the people.
Then an independent judiciary,we'll talk about that.
(04:28):
The size of the house itselfwas too small, it wasn't
representative enough.
And then, as I mentioned, thelack of a bill of rights, the
lack of limits, guardrailsagainst this new government's
power, federal government powerto protect individual rights.
And to summarize all of it, theanti-federalists thought there
(04:50):
was not enough attention toself-government and Republican
civic virtue of participatingcitizens governing themselves
close to their representativebodies, bodies.
So, if you think about it,obviously the Bill of Rights is
(05:11):
important.
We can talk more about that.
But think about what they wereconcerned about the federal
government become too strong andtoo big.
Well, we've heard a little bitabout that in debates all during
my lifetime I was born in the1960s right the constant debate
about which powers belong withthe states and which powers are
going with the federalgovernment.
And is the federal governmentin Washington DC just a sort of
(05:33):
deep state that is interested initself?
Well, you know, not everyparticular criticism of the
Anti-Federalists might be onethat you agree with, and you
might say the whole package ofthem was incorrect, that the
Constitution should have beenratified.
But, on the other hand, here weare 240 years later and some of
(05:55):
these principles, issues,concerns that the
Anti-Federalists raised arestill with us and still very
important.
So let me just mention quicklythe names of some of them.
A great 20th century scholarnamed Herbert Storing, who was a
professor for most of hiscareer at the University of
Chicago, said that there werereally three of the
(06:17):
anti-Federalist writers indifferent states who were as
thoughtful and serious as thebest of the Federalist writers,
the Federalists being theproponents of ratification of
the Constitution.
And the three that he pickedout were Federal Farmer, who
probably was writing fromVirginia, but we're not sure.
(06:37):
Brutus, who was writing fromNew York, and Sentinel, who was
writing from Pennsylvania, and,as we talked about in an earlier
episode with the Federaliststhe Federalist papers.
Federalists chooses Hamilton,chooses Publius as the pseudonym
of the pen name.
Right, well, theseanti-Federalist writers were
writing first.
They were writing immediatelyafter the Constitutional
(06:59):
Convention closed in Septemberof 1787.
They chose pen names, oftentheir Roman Republican names,
roman Republican Liberty, butnot always like federal farmer.
And then there are othersAgrippa is one author, cato.
And then there are people whodon't write under pen names but
were very well known at the timeof the founding and opponents
(07:20):
to ratification of theConstitution in their state
ratification conventions.
So Patrick Henry is ananti-federalist, he opposes
ratification conventions.
So Patrick Henry is ananti-Federalist, he opposes
ratification in Virginia.
Samuel Adams.
Samuel Adams opposesratification in the
Massachusetts Convention in 1777.
George Mason of Virginia.
Mercy Otis Warren, who turns outto be a great woman of letters
(07:44):
and historian, writes animportant history of the whole
revolutionary and foundingperiod.
Mercy Otis Warren is ananti-federalist.
So this is a great question.
Because while they didn't havethe anti-federalists, they
didn't have a good PR operation,they didn't have a good public
relations campaign, they didn'tcoordinate.
I mean, it makes sense, right?
They were interested in localliberty, local self-government,
(08:06):
republican self-government outin the States.
They didn't make a nationalcoordinated campaign, the way
Hamilton did.
Hamilton picking the nameFederalist, hamilton pulling up
James Madison from Virginia andJohn Jay to write not just a few
essays but 85 essays in a bookunder the name the Federalist.
So the Anti-Federalists don'thave a PR campaign, but they get
(08:28):
, and then because of that theyget stuck with the Anti-Name.
The Federalists choose the namefor themselves.
We are a fan of this newConstitution, we have the true
conception of Federalism and theopponents are stuck with Anti
Anti-Federalists.
But for all that, they are, asI've tried to suggest.
(08:51):
These ideas, these writers,these Americans are very
important for understanding ourconstitution and for founding
our constitutionalism.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Dr Kreish, I do have more questions, but I do.
You know we had talked aboutbecause the Federalists put
theirs like in a book right, andyou told me a story about kind
of the collection of theanti-Federalists to study 40
years ago as an undergraduatewith a student of Herbert
Storing's named Murray Dry.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Storing died young, very suddenly, at age 49, of a
heart attack, and Murray Dryfinished this work and the work
was called the CompleteAnti-Federalist.
(09:35):
You can find it, it's still inprint from University of Chicago
Press and the introductoryvolume of it, written by Storing
, is what the Anti-Federalistswere for and this is his big
contribution that these wereserious writers Among them, the
best of them.
They were as serious andthoughtful as Hamilton, madison,
(09:56):
jay and other leadingFederalist writers and they
deserved to have their workcollected.
We deserved to read about itand argue about it.
And I guess I'll mention thelarger point that Storing makes
this incredible claim that ifyou don't understand the
(10:17):
Anti-Federalist point of view,you can't really claim to
understand the Federalist pointof view and you can't really
claim to understand theFederalist point of view and you
can't really claim tounderstand the American founding
.
And as an undergraduate Ithought this was incredible,
right to hear this argument thatthe anti-Federalists, the
losers, were in a way asimportant as the Federalists.
Now he does say and this isanother extraordinary thing
(10:38):
about Storing he says says inhis own view as a scholar, the
Federalists had the betterargument.
All things considered, all thefactors considered, the
Federalists make the betterarguments.
The Constitution should havebeen ratified.
But think about that.
Here's a scholar who devotesyears of effort to collecting
the best of the Anti-Federalistwritings and then putting them
(11:00):
not just in the big seven-volumeversion but in a one-volume
version.
So there's a kind of companionto the Federalist as a
one-volume version.
Right, that scholar Storingthought the Federalists had the
better argument, but he'slaboring to make sure the rest
of us in America know theanti-Federalist arguments.
So I'm going to read aquotation from his introductory
(11:21):
volume If the foundation of theAmerican polity was laid by the
Federalists, says Storing, theanti-Federalist reservations
echo through American historyand it is in the dialogue, not
merely in the Federalist victory, that the country's principles
are to be discovered.
(11:41):
I mean, that's an amazingargument.
And if we had more of thatspirit in American life, that if
I hold a particular principleabout the meaning of the
Constitution, about some publicpolicy question, but I really
looked for and wanted to listento the best arguments opposing
it, I would understand my ownargument better and I might
actually make the further stepof saying you know what there's
(12:04):
a possible compromise I couldmake here.
My apparent opponent has a goodpoint or two right.
And so now to get back to theanti-federalists.
That's where the Bill of Rightscomes from.
If it weren't for the seriouscriticisms made by various
anti-federalist writers FederalFarmer, brutus, sentinel, others
(12:28):
federalists wouldn't have saidyou know what?
They've got a good point andwe're not going to win
ratification.
They've got such a good pointwe're going to lose the
ratification vote in some ofthese states.
We need to pledge toimmediately amend this
constitution using the Article Vamendment procedure in it for a
Bill of Rights.
That's a great model for all ofAmerican political life and
(12:51):
it's a paradox, but it's acrucial character of American
politics and American politicallife.
We find that we agree oncertain principles.
The Federalists and theAnti-Federalists agreed about
individual natural rights.
They agreed about theDeclaration, they agreed about
republicanism andself-government in general ways,
and then they disagreed abouthow to actually live up to those
(13:13):
ideas, how to implement them,and the argument produced a
great thing the Bill of Rightsas well as the argument
producing the Federalists right.
If it wasn't for theAnti-Federalist authors getting
out of the gate first, hamiltonand Madison and Jay wouldn't
have been pushed to write suchextraordinary essays as they did
in the Federalist.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
And that Anti-Federalist collection
wasn't put together until the1970s.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
The 1970s, storing was thinking about the
bicentennial of the Declarationof Independence.
We're now thinking about thesemi-quincentennial, the 250th
anniversary.
But Storing undertook thisgreat scholarship because of a
commemoration moment of theAmerican founding.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
That's just thank you for indulging me, because when
you told me that, it just, Ithink, blew me away that 200
years later, theanti-federalists finally get
their volume and finally getsomebody that kind of is out
there saying this is important.
I agree that the other side won, but this stuff is still very,
(14:20):
very important.
You mentioned the Bill ofRights as the most significant
result of the anti-federalistcritique of the proposed
Constitution.
How does that concern aboutlack of protection for
individual rights fit underother anti-federalist concerns
about the proposed federalgovernment?
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Yes, this is one of Starring's great points, that
there's a package of ideas theantifederalists have, even if
they don't themselves coordinateand brand their messaging, so
to speak, in the samecoordinated way that Hamilton
does with the antifederalists,but they fit together concern
that this new proposed federalgovernment, the new way of
(15:01):
governing the union of thestates produced too strong a
government in the center and itwould eventually take powers
away from the state governments.
And the root issue there isrepublicanism, republican
self-government.
So some of the anti-federalistswould say you know, maybe this
constitution could be ratified,but it has to be kind of amended
(15:24):
first.
Right, we could eventuallyaccept something like this, but
we need a larger House ofRepresentatives and we need
definitely the Bill of Rights toshow what the limits are of
this government.
And maybe we should make somerevisions to say, like there
shouldn't be such a powerfulindependent judiciary that they
have a power of constitutionalinterpretation, the power we
(15:47):
call judicial review, now thatthese independent federal judges
could strike down laws of thestates or strike down laws of
the Congress and the presidentin the federal government.
So the whole theme of this is,yes, individual rights and
individual liberty, but there'sa positive, participatory
(16:09):
element.
It's not just what a governmentin the center shouldn't do,
it's what states and localgovernments should do.
So here I'll finish on thispoint.
One of the major themes of thevarious anti-Federalist authors
is that the whole approach ofthe Constitution didn't
emphasize citizenship and civicvirtue, the civic virtue of a
(16:32):
self-governing Republican peopleto American government.
Otherwise, why did we fight therevolution?
Why did we resist an imperialgovernment far away in London
and resist a monarchy and anaristocratic class of nobles in
the House of Lords?
Why did we go through all thisfight and effort and bloodshed
(16:53):
and sacrifice to get a kind oflocal version of monarchy and
aristocracy right?
We should be thinking aboutRepublican self-government in
the States as very important.
And yes, maybe we need tostrengthen the Articles of
Confederation a little bit.
Maybe we need a little bit ofstronger government, the center
for the union, but not thisstrong, because the whole point
(17:13):
of liberty and self-governmentand republicanism is being lost.
So again, to echo HerbertStoring and my professor Mary
Dry, the Bill of Rights does onehuge piece of work to amend
American constitutionalism atthe beginning, and then it's up
to us to continue, 240 yearslater, to continue with the
(17:38):
debate between the federalistand anti-federalist views.
What did the-Federalists getwrong?
What are some good points andresponses made by the
Federalists?
How do we strike the rightbalance between having enough
government in the center to dealwith foreign affairs and to
deal with organizing ourcommerce and organizing
relations among the states, andwhat government is too much in
(18:00):
the center and how muchgovernment and activity should
we have at the state level andat the local level?
So we're greatly indebted tothe Anti-Federalists for being
such thoughtful advocates ofthis idea of Republican
self-government and the need forcivic virtue and for reasonable
disagreement, civildisagreement and argument, and
(18:22):
for reasonable disagreementcivil disagreement and argument.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Dr Kreis, thank you for helping us bring the
anti-federalists to life.
I feel like they don't gettheir due enough, but this was
very, very helpful.
Thank you again.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Thank you.
Welcome back everyone .
I am excited about today'stopic because I feel like this
group of people doesn't gettalked about as much as always.
We have Dr Carice back with usand Dr Carice, today we're going
to talk about theanti-Federalists, right?
So who were the most importantanti-Federalists and why were
(00:22):
their ideas so important?
And we kind of touched on it ina previous episode, but I want
to go more in depth with ittoday.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Yes, thank you, liz, this does.
This topic deserves moreattention than it usually
receives.
Partly it's because of theanti-word and the name of these
founders of our Constitutionalthe anti-federalists.
And the anti-federalists werethe opponents to the
ratification of the 1787constitution and because they
(00:52):
lost, so to speak.
The 1787 constitution wasratified by the requisite number
of states and eventually by allthe original 13 states.
Well, the Anti-Federalists werethe losers, and why do we care
about losers, right?
So our challenge is to see that, while the name is not great
(01:13):
branding and I'll talk aboutthis Anti-Federalists their
contribution to the founding ofAmerican constitutionalism is
very important and they deserveto be considered founding
fathers.
And I'll cite a great 20thcentury scholar who made this
argument.
So this is paradoxical Criticsof our Constitution deserve to
(01:33):
be considered founding fathers.
Well, one obvious piece ofevidence for this is that
without the anti-federalists andtheir written and persistent
criticisms of the new proposedConstitution, we would not have
the Bill of Rights.
And, in effect, the Bill ofRights was fairly certain to be
(01:54):
a reality by the end of theratification process itself.
Sort of gentleman agreementshad occurred in several
important state ratificationdebates, saying, look if you
vote to ratify this Constitution, me a real advocate of it, a
Federalist as they were called.
I pledge to you that amendmentswill be put forward immediately
(02:15):
under the amendment procedurein the Constitution to establish
a Bill of Rights.
So that's a big, complicatedargument.
But to step back for a minute.
The Anti-Federalists are theopponents because they believe
the new proposed Constitutionwas establishing would establish
too strong a government.
The new federal government wasgoing to be too remote from
(02:41):
democratic consent.
Offices that were too powerful.
These were offices, said theAnti-Federalists, like what
you'd see in an aristocracy or amonarchy.
And eventually this new federalgovernment under the new 1787
Constitution would overwhelm thestate governments.
(03:01):
You wouldn't have a federalrepublic, a republic made up of
independent state governments.
You would have one consolidatedAmerican government.
And why did they say this?
Well, if you think about justtake the single executive office
of the presidency that hascontrol over the entire war
(03:23):
powers, commander-in-chiefpowers, and over a lot of
foreign affairs andadministration, execution of
domestic affairs, well, that's alot of power in one office and
it's a single person.
And that single person iselected for a long term four
years and in the originalConstitution that office was not
elected by the people, it wasselected by a college of
(03:47):
electors, as it was referred to.
Okay, so there's one criticismof the Antifederos.
Second one is that the Senate,in the legislature proposed by
the 1787 Constitution, the upperhouse, the Senate, well, that's
taking power away from thepeople's house, from the house
of representatives.
(04:08):
The Senate has distinct powersabout treaties and about
confirming judges proposed bythe executive and by confirming
other offices proposed by theexecutive.
So this, this Senate, togetherwith the executive, that's way
that's.
That's way too powerful and waytoo remote from the people.
Then an independent judiciary,we'll talk about that.
(04:28):
The size of the house itselfwas too small, it wasn't
representative enough.
And then, as I mentioned, thelack of a bill of rights, the
lack of limits, guardrailsagainst this new government's
power, federal government powerto protect individual rights.
And to summarize all of it, theanti-federalists thought there
(04:50):
was not enough attention toself-government and Republican
civic virtue of participatingcitizens governing themselves
close to their representativebodies, bodies.
So, if you think about it,obviously the Bill of Rights is
(05:11):
important.
We can talk more about that.
But think about what they wereconcerned about the federal
government become too strong andtoo big.
Well, we've heard a little bitabout that in debates all during
my lifetime I was born in the1960s right the constant debate
about which powers belong withthe states and which powers are
going with the federalgovernment.
And is the federal governmentin Washington DC just a sort of
(05:33):
deep state that is interested initself?
Well, you know, not everyparticular criticism of the
Anti-Federalists might be onethat you agree with, and you
might say the whole package ofthem was incorrect, that the
Constitution should have beenratified.
But, on the other hand, here weare 240 years later and some of
(05:55):
these principles, issues,concerns that the
Anti-Federalists raised arestill with us and still very
important.
So let me just mention quicklythe names of some of them.
A great 20th century scholarnamed Herbert Storing, who was a
professor for most of hiscareer at the University of
Chicago, said that there werereally three of the
(06:17):
anti-Federalist writers indifferent states who were as
thoughtful and serious as thebest of the Federalist writers,
the Federalists being theproponents of ratification of
the Constitution.
And the three that he pickedout were Federal Farmer, who
probably was writing fromVirginia, but we're not sure.
(06:37):
Brutus, who was writing fromNew York, and Sentinel, who was
writing from Pennsylvania, and,as we talked about in an earlier
episode with the Federaliststhe Federalist papers.
Federalists chooses Hamilton,chooses Publius as the pseudonym
of the pen name.
Right, well, theseanti-Federalist writers were
writing first.
They were writing immediatelyafter the Constitutional
(06:59):
Convention closed in Septemberof 1787.
They chose pen names, oftentheir Roman Republican names,
roman Republican Liberty, butnot always like federal farmer.
And then there are othersAgrippa is one author, cato.
And then there are people whodon't write under pen names but
were very well known at the timeof the founding and opponents
(07:20):
to ratification of theConstitution in their state
ratification conventions.
So Patrick Henry is ananti-federalist, he opposes
ratification conventions.
So Patrick Henry is ananti-Federalist, he opposes
ratification in Virginia.
Samuel Adams.
Samuel Adams opposesratification in the
Massachusetts Convention in 1777.
George Mason of Virginia.
Mercy Otis Warren, who turns outto be a great woman of letters
(07:44):
and historian, writes animportant history of the whole
revolutionary and foundingperiod.
Mercy Otis Warren is ananti-federalist.
So this is a great question.
Because while they didn't havethe anti-federalists, they
didn't have a good PR operation,they didn't have a good public
relations campaign, they didn'tcoordinate.
I mean, it makes sense, right?
They were interested in localliberty, local self-government,
(08:06):
republican self-government outin the States.
They didn't make a nationalcoordinated campaign, the way
Hamilton did.
Hamilton picking the nameFederalist, hamilton pulling up
James Madison from Virginia andJohn Jay to write not just a few
essays but 85 essays in a bookunder the name the Federalist.
So the Anti-Federalists don'thave a PR campaign, but they get
(08:28):
, and then because of that theyget stuck with the Anti-Name.
The Federalists choose the namefor themselves.
We are a fan of this newConstitution, we have the true
conception of Federalism and theopponents are stuck with Anti
Anti-Federalists.
But for all that, they are, asI've tried to suggest.
(08:51):
These ideas, these writers,these Americans are very
important for understanding ourconstitution and for founding
our constitutionalism.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Dr Kreish, I do have more questions, but I do.
You know we had talked aboutbecause the Federalists put
theirs like in a book right, andyou told me a story about kind
of the collection of theanti-Federalists to study 40
years ago as an undergraduatewith a student of Herbert
Storing's named Murray Dry.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Storing died young, very suddenly, at age 49, of a
heart attack, and Murray Dryfinished this work and the work
was called the CompleteAnti-Federalist.
(09:35):
You can find it, it's still inprint from University of Chicago
Press and the introductoryvolume of it, written by Storing
, is what the Anti-Federalistswere for and this is his big
contribution that these wereserious writers Among them, the
best of them.
They were as serious andthoughtful as Hamilton, madison,
(09:56):
jay and other leadingFederalist writers and they
deserved to have their workcollected.
We deserved to read about itand argue about it.
And I guess I'll mention thelarger point that Storing makes
this incredible claim that ifyou don't understand the
(10:17):
Anti-Federalist point of view,you can't really claim to
understand the Federalist pointof view and you can't really
claim to understand theFederalist point of view and you
can't really claim tounderstand the American founding
.
And as an undergraduate Ithought this was incredible,
right to hear this argument thatthe anti-Federalists, the
losers, were in a way asimportant as the Federalists.
Now he does say and this isanother extraordinary thing
(10:38):
about Storing he says says inhis own view as a scholar, the
Federalists had the betterargument.
All things considered, all thefactors considered, the
Federalists make the betterarguments.
The Constitution should havebeen ratified.
But think about that.
Here's a scholar who devotesyears of effort to collecting
the best of the Anti-Federalistwritings and then putting them
(11:00):
not just in the big seven-volumeversion but in a one-volume
version.
So there's a kind of companionto the Federalist as a
one-volume version.
Right, that scholar Storingthought the Federalists had the
better argument, but he'slaboring to make sure the rest
of us in America know theanti-Federalist arguments.
So I'm going to read aquotation from his introductory
(11:21):
volume If the foundation of theAmerican polity was laid by the
Federalists, says Storing, theanti-Federalist reservations
echo through American historyand it is in the dialogue, not
merely in the Federalist victory, that the country's principles
are to be discovered.
(11:41):
I mean, that's an amazingargument.
And if we had more of thatspirit in American life, that if
I hold a particular principleabout the meaning of the
Constitution, about some publicpolicy question, but I really
looked for and wanted to listento the best arguments opposing
it, I would understand my ownargument better and I might
actually make the further stepof saying you know what there's
(12:04):
a possible compromise I couldmake here.
My apparent opponent has a goodpoint or two right.
And so now to get back to theanti-federalists.
That's where the Bill of Rightscomes from.
If it weren't for the seriouscriticisms made by various
anti-federalist writers FederalFarmer, brutus, sentinel, others
(12:28):
federalists wouldn't have saidyou know what?
They've got a good point andwe're not going to win
ratification.
They've got such a good pointwe're going to lose the
ratification vote in some ofthese states.
We need to pledge toimmediately amend this
constitution using the Article Vamendment procedure in it for a
Bill of Rights.
That's a great model for all ofAmerican political life and
(12:51):
it's a paradox, but it's acrucial character of American
politics and American politicallife.
We find that we agree oncertain principles.
The Federalists and theAnti-Federalists agreed about
individual natural rights.
They agreed about theDeclaration, they agreed about
republicanism andself-government in general ways,
and then they disagreed abouthow to actually live up to those
(13:13):
ideas, how to implement them,and the argument produced a
great thing the Bill of Rightsas well as the argument
producing the Federalists right.
If it wasn't for theAnti-Federalist authors getting
out of the gate first, hamiltonand Madison and Jay wouldn't
have been pushed to write suchextraordinary essays as they did
in the Federalist.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
And that Anti-Federalist collection
wasn't put together until the1970s.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
The 1970s, storing was thinking about the
bicentennial of the Declarationof Independence.
We're now thinking about thesemi-quincentennial, the 250th
anniversary.
But Storing undertook thisgreat scholarship because of a
commemoration moment of theAmerican founding.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
That's just thank you for indulging me, because when
you told me that, it just, Ithink, blew me away that 200
years later, theanti-federalists finally get
their volume and finally getsomebody that kind of is out
there saying this is important.
I agree that the other side won, but this stuff is still very,
(14:20):
very important.
You mentioned the Bill ofRights as the most significant
result of the anti-federalistcritique of the proposed
Constitution.
How does that concern aboutlack of protection for
individual rights fit underother anti-federalist concerns
about the proposed federalgovernment?
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Yes, this is one of Starring's great points, that
there's a package of ideas theantifederalists have, even if
they don't themselves coordinateand brand their messaging, so
to speak, in the samecoordinated way that Hamilton
does with the antifederalists,but they fit together concern
that this new proposed federalgovernment, the new way of
(15:01):
governing the union of thestates produced too strong a
government in the center and itwould eventually take powers
away from the state governments.
And the root issue there isrepublicanism, republican
self-government.
So some of the anti-federalistswould say you know, maybe this
constitution could be ratified,but it has to be kind of amended
(15:24):
first.
Right, we could eventuallyaccept something like this, but
we need a larger House ofRepresentatives and we need
definitely the Bill of Rights toshow what the limits are of
this government.
And maybe we should make somerevisions to say, like there
shouldn't be such a powerfulindependent judiciary that they
have a power of constitutionalinterpretation, the power we
(15:47):
call judicial review, now thatthese independent federal judges
could strike down laws of thestates or strike down laws of
the Congress and the presidentin the federal government.
So the whole theme of this is,yes, individual rights and
individual liberty, but there'sa positive, participatory
(16:09):
element.
It's not just what a governmentin the center shouldn't do,
it's what states and localgovernments should do.
So here I'll finish on thispoint.
One of the major themes of thevarious anti-Federalist authors
is that the whole approach ofthe Constitution didn't
emphasize citizenship and civicvirtue, the civic virtue of a
(16:32):
self-governing Republican peopleto American government.
Otherwise, why did we fight therevolution?
Why did we resist an imperialgovernment far away in London
and resist a monarchy and anaristocratic class of nobles in
the House of Lords?
Why did we go through all thisfight and effort and bloodshed
(16:53):
and sacrifice to get a kind oflocal version of monarchy and
aristocracy right?
We should be thinking aboutRepublican self-government in
the States as very important.
And yes, maybe we need tostrengthen the Articles of
Confederation a little bit.
Maybe we need a little bit ofstronger government, the center
for the union, but not thisstrong, because the whole point
(17:13):
of liberty and self-governmentand republicanism is being lost.
So again, to echo HerbertStoring and my professor Mary
Dry, the Bill of Rights does onehuge piece of work to amend
American constitutionalism atthe beginning, and then it's up
to us to continue, 240 yearslater, to continue with the
(17:38):
debate between the federalistand anti-federalist views.
What did the-Federalists getwrong?
What are some good points andresponses made by the
Federalists?
How do we strike the rightbalance between having enough
government in the center to dealwith foreign affairs and to
deal with organizing ourcommerce and organizing
relations among the states, andwhat government is too much in
(18:00):
the center and how muchgovernment and activity should
we have at the state level andat the local level?
So we're greatly indebted tothe Anti-Federalists for being
such thoughtful advocates ofthis idea of Republican
self-government and the need forcivic virtue and for reasonable
disagreement, civildisagreement and argument, and
(18:22):
for reasonable disagreementcivil disagreement and argument.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Dr Kreis, thank you for helping us bring the
anti-federalists to life.
I feel like they don't gettheir due enough, but this was
very, very helpful.
Thank you again.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Thank you.
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