Similarities Between The Federalist And Anti-Federalists

Title In the final copy of the Constitution, many compromises were made between the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists. The main goal of the Federalists’ was to ratify and publish the Constitution; however, the unanimous ratification by all thirteen states needed to publish the Constitution set their progress back, as the Anti-Federalists had many issues with the standing draft of the Constitution. The primary topic of discourse between the two factions was over the addition of the Bill of Rights. Another topic of contention held was the Anti-Federalists’ demands for full and fair representation in the government. Their argument was that the Constitution would give an overwhelming amount of power to the federal government, and leave the state and local governments deprived of power. They feared that the federal government would be too absent in governing to represent the citizen, as a

The Bill of Rights wasn’t just a simple want from average citizens that weren’t well-to-do and privileged, it was necessity that. Their victory in securing the rights protected the thirteen states from the possibility of forming a government that could hypothetically end up being too strongly centralized and too far removed from state and local governing that it would end up resembling a monarchy. This hypothetical government has striking resemblances to the one that they just fought against in war defending their individual rights and liberties. Kennedy quotes the well-known Anti-Federalist Richard Henry Lee on this very subject, “’Tis really astonishing that the same people, who have just emerged from a long and cruel war in defense of liberty, should now agree to fix an elective despotism upon themselves and their posterity” (Kennedy 173). Here, Lee expresses one of the Anti-Federalists sentiments opposing the proposed