Anti-Federalists

As he was so quick to remind us on Twitter this morning.

The anti-federalists had their points.

They did.

They were

We can get into that some other time.

We should do a podcast on that.

What were the anti-federalists right?

The anti-federalist papers would be a great one.

We would at least like to debate these and talk about possibly rewriting some of them." And Wilson is on the side of the Federalists who, as you suggested earlier, resort to violence in some cases to push the Constitution across the finish line.

It's a shocking thing to watch, and I have to say, at moments I was really feeling sympathy with the Anti-Federalists, [laughs] the, the o- the opponents of the [laughs], of the Constitution.

I was like, "Yeah, these are, these are really reasonable critiques and why are the, why is Wilson and, and why are Wilson and his peers not listening?" But you know, it, politics is hardball.

I confess, I, I often have sympathy for the Anti-Federalists-

[laughs]

... especially in the past 10 years.

Because in Patrick Henry's mind, he could say, well, I disagree strongly with Washington in this, but he is such a great man and a great leader that there's no one else.

And even the anti-federalists and Jeffersonians agreed that they needed Washington.

when he squashes the Whiskey Rebellion, right? He puts on his uniform again to do that, right? And so he's, again, with knowing what this looks like, and he does it, and he's very adamant about the military going.

And what always gets me about the Whiskey Rebellion is, A, I grew up in Cannonsburg, PA, where all of this took place, right? And so I'm...

Instead, the Federalists thought that the term appellate jurisdiction in the proposed Constitution denotes nothing more than the power of one tribunal to review the proceedings of another, either as to the law or fact or both.

For their part, the Anti-Federalists seemed to agree.

They worried that appellate jurisdiction, as used in the Constitution, would authorize civil law appeals, which involved the power to re-examine the whole merits of a previously initiated case, including review of facts.

All appeared to agree, however, that the revising power of a court is appellate in nature.

Constitution and how we should have just stuck with the Articles of Confederation.

Read the Anti-Federalist Papers listeners, please.

If you get the opportunity, you know, get it for Christmas, for your family, friends, whatever, read it because they smelled a rat at the time in the Constitution.

That's what I was just going to say.

They wanted to make sure that there was some kind of provision to make sure that they retained arms.

Northern Anti-Federalists also demanded arms protection.

Northern Americans worried that a powerful federal government might use a standing army to suppress political opposition or undermine local self-government.

That isn't something that was hidden.

Americans have never settled the question of how best to love this country.

Does patriotism mean prioritizing unconditional loyalty? The Pledge of Allegiance I remember repeating every morning of elementary school, right hand over my heart? Or does it first demand skepticism and vigilance, a setting and resetting of expectations, a love that needs to be earned? This tension goes back to the very beginning, to the ratification of the Constitution, when Federalists and Anti-Federalists debated whether there was enough glue to hold this new political entity together.

To argue for a union was to willfully overlook the irreconcilable divisions between the states, slavery being the most obvious gulf.

our most fondly remembered founding fathers took a leap of faith.

For folks who might recall their high school U.S. history, you might remember the anti-federalists.

They were the folks who argued against the ratification of the Constitution.

And a lot of the Anti-Federalists, they had been very prominent leaders during the Revolutionary War period and immediately following.

And one of them, or perhaps more than one of them, wrote under the pseudonym Brutus.

Brutus.