The Anti-Federalists Saw This Coming!
The Anti-Federalists, America’s Unsung Heroes, Predicted Evil Empire & The Imperial Presidency
The Anti-Federalists, America’s Unsung Heroes, Predicted Evil Empire & The Imperial Presidency
(Ilana Mercer, The Abbeville Institute) - On the eve of the federal convention, and following its adjournment in September of 1787, the Anti-Federalists made the case that the Constitution makers in Philadelphia had exceeded the mandate they were given to amend the Articles of Confederation, and nothing more.
The Federal Constitution augured ill for freedom, argued the Anti-Federalists. These unsung heroes had warned early Americans of the “ropes and chains of consolidation,” in Patrick Henry’s magnificent words, inherent in the new dispensation.
Two hundred years into just such “consolidation”—in the magisterial —constitutional scholar James McClellan distilled the Anti-Federalist argument with the respect it deserves.
As “strong advocates of States’ Rights,” Anti-Federalists held that “self-government, independence, and individual liberty were best protected at the local level. A distant and powerful central government,” the kind cooked up at the Philadelphia convention, was anathema to these “cherished values.” To that end, Anti-Federalists fought to preserve the “loose-knit relationship” that had existed between the “Confederation government and the States.”
Should the Federal Constitution be ratified, there would be “no checks, no real balances,” thundered Patrick Henry. Instead, the country would live under a “powerful and mighty empire.”
Writing under the assumed name “Agrippa,” yet another…
