Braylin Davis Great question. So just to establish the basis, antifederalists were against a powerful federal government, while federalists supported a powerful federal government. The Constitution concentrated power in a single national government and took away power from the individual state governments. That fact forms the crux of the antifederalist argument that the constitution was counterrevolutionary. Here are several other facts: the class of antifederalists consisted of the past revolutionaries like Patrick Henry ("give me liberty or give me death") and Samuel Adams, those devoted to maintaining states' rights, backcountry farmers, and debtors. Basically, these groups saw the Constitution as a plot by the wealthy aristocrats to steal political power from the common folk. The whole point of the Revolutionary War against Britain, in the minds of the antifederalists, was to rid America of the tyranny (oppressive, overly powerful government) under the British. Now, the antifederalists saw a form of that tyranny being reborn in America with the Constitution because of these facts: they claimed it was demolishing the power of the states' government, that it was jeopardizing individual rights and freedoms with the absence of a bill of rights, that abandoning the practice of annual elections for representatives in congress was antidemocratic, that the construction of a federalist stronghold (the capital) would suck away all democratic elements, that the creation of a standing army would give the government the power to evolve to tyranny and oppression. The antifederalists overall feared that all the power granted to the federal government by the Constitution was going against what they had fought for in the revolution since it was again concentrating power in a single area and not guaranteeing individual rights. They feared the American federal government would soon be no different from that of the British that had caused so much suffering.
Antifederalists argued that the constitution was counterrevolutionary, while federalists argued the opposite. What facts support each of these arguments?
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Braylin Davis Great question. So just to establish the basis, antifederalists were against a powerful federal government, while federalists supported a powerful federal government. The Constitution concentrated power in a single national government and took away power from the individual state governments. That fact forms the crux of the antifederalist argument that the constitution was counterrevolutionary. Here are several other facts: the class of antifederalists consisted of the past revolutionaries like Patrick Henry ("give me liberty or give me death") and Samuel Adams, those devoted to maintaining states' rights, backcountry farmers, and debtors. Basically, these groups saw the Constitution as a plot by the wealthy aristocrats to steal political power from the common folk. The whole point of the Revolutionary War against Britain, in the minds of the antifederalists, was to rid America of the tyranny (oppressive, overly powerful government) under the British. Now, the antifederalists saw a form of that tyranny being reborn in America with the Constitution because of these facts: they claimed it was demolishing the power of the states' government, that it was jeopardizing individual rights and freedoms with the absence of a bill of rights, that abandoning the practice of annual elections for representatives in congress was antidemocratic, that the construction of a federalist stronghold (the capital) would suck away all democratic elements, that the creation of a standing army would give the government the power to evolve to tyranny and oppression. The antifederalists overall feared that all the power granted to the federal government by the Constitution was going against what they had fought for in the revolution since it was again concentrating power in a single area and not guaranteeing individual rights. They feared the American federal government would soon be no different from that of the British that had caused so much suffering.
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Antifederalists argued that the constitution was counterrevolutionary, while federalists argued the opposite. What facts support each of these arguments?