The Farmer's Rebellion

The Anti-Federalists argued that their form of government was more effective. They argued many points that were reasonable. Brutus wrote that he feared that our government would be controlled by a group of elites, and he thought that these elites would abuse the people’s rights by just doing what would only benefit them. Brutus thought once the elites started running our country, that they would be in power for a long time and no one could change their minds on certain views. (Brutus 1).

Adopted on September 17, 1787, the Constitution changed both American and world governments forever. "The Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia met between May and September of 1787 to address the problems of the weak central government that existed under the Articles of Confederation” (Milestones, n.d., par. 1). The Articles of Confederation was a thrown together bill to govern the new America; due to the fact that it was rushed, there were flaws and weaknesses in it. "The delegates had been tasked by Congress with amending the Articles of Confederation; however, they soon began deliberating proposals for an entirely new form of government” (History, 2009, par. 9). All the weaknesses in the federal government called others to action, which ended up being one of the most important documents in history: The United States

The Federalists and the Anti - Federalists played an indispensable part in the establishment of the American Constitution. Federalists were supporters of the constitution, while Anti federalist were against the ratification of the Constitution. Federalists believed in the idea of a larger heterogeneous republic whereas anti federalists wanted a small homogenous republic. Famous federalists like James Madison, John Jay and Alexander Hamilton are responsible for giving us paramount pieces of historic documents in the form of “the Federalist papers”. The Federalist papers were 85 documents urging the ratification of the US Constitution. Anti federalist side included people like Samuel Adams, George Mason and Patrick Henry, and they believed the Articles of Confederation should be altered rather than completely changed in the form of the Constitution. Concurring with the Federalist side, it is imperative to see that the Federalists’ argument was more viable, due to the fact that larger republics and “checks and balances” are useful tools in controlling a democracy. We can’t compare ourselves to the way Sparta and Athens operated. Our country would thrive more under a stronger national government rather than a stronger state government.

The Articles of Confederation and the Constitution are two very important guidelines of government that shaped the political minds of the Americans. Mainly because these guidelines limited, or expanded the powers of the executive, legislative, and judicial branch. The Articles of Confederation were a series of laws that gave more power to the state government than the federal government. As a result, the federal government could not enforce laws or levy taxes. After Shay’s Rebellion, the Founding Fathers realized that a change was necessary. So the Constitution was created. The most important change of the Constitution was that the majority of power was then shifted into the hands of the federal or central government. This allowed the federal

Antifederalists, in the other hand, feared strong central government, tyranny, and dictatorship, and wanted strong state governments, individual liberties and opposed ratification of the Constitution (until a bill of rights was added). Federalists’ supporters were merchants, skilled workers, laborers, cities and small states. Antifederalists’ supporters were large states and rural areas. Both sides believed in the principles of limited government but had different ways of how to limit the government. Antifederalists feared that the national government would take away all the powers of the state government so that is why they wanted the powers of national government to be limited and specified. They also claimed that the bill of rights should be added to the Constitution to limit government’s powers over

These people agreed on the Constitution as they believed that it would strengthen the federal government. The reason behind their belief of a stronger federal government was their fear of too much power given to the people. They wanted people who feared the Constitution to know that they will not regret the ratification of the Constitution. Most importantly on their side, they want both sides to be happy. The evidence that supports these claims are, “...not invested with more powers than indispensably necessary to perform the functions of a good government.” (Document 4), “These powers...are so distributed...that it can never be in danger of degenerating the monarchy.” (Document 4), and “Each individual then must contribute such a share of his rights as is necessary for attaining that security that is essential to freedom.” (Document 6). This evidence proves that the federalists are making sure that everyone is content with their rights. They are also assuring the anti federalists that the federal government will not abuse power and they will not take over their

In the year 1787 a fierce debate over the ratification of the Constitution took place in the United States. The young nation suffered from a government too weak to handle its problems but with citizens wary and skeptical of strong, central governments. This is where the debate between Federalists and Anti-Federalists took place, the debate that would set American ideals into stone with the ratification of the Constitution and the later-added Bill of Rights. The Federalists believed in a stronger central government to help overcome the struggles the fledgling nation faced while the Anti-federalists believed that the Constitution did not do enough to secure the rights of the people from a tyranny not unlike that of King George’s. Throughout this

The United States Constitution was an important document that changed history and a flexible document that could adapt to future challenges for many reasons. This important document replaced the Articles of Confederation, which had many problems from the beginning. Over time, the Constitution has also been amended to meet the challenges in the future.

The federalist supported the constitution with the idea of having a strong central government with limitless power, which the federalist believe would create liberty and power. At the time, the states needed a way to recover themselves after the American revolution and need a way to recover financially. The federalists believe with a powerful central government they can distribute power and money as they see fit to the states. These ideas lead many to believe, the united states were heading into the same type of government the British had. The Anti-Federalists believed the constitution would eventually take away the liberty and remind them of the consequences the document might lead to. They feared that “the government would be controlled by the wealthy, with the constitution only effecting small communities” (lecture 3/3/16). With the constitution the states had to surrender their power to the central government, with no guarantees of the central government abusing the

Anti-Federalists is a group of people in the early U.S. who opposed ratification of the U. S. Constitution, because they feared a strong national government would oppress the people. They believed the governments should be rightly balanced, the different branches of legislature should be unconnected, and that the legislative and executive powers should be separate (Regent, Word Doc., 2017). Their concerns were within the national government; the legislative and executive branches were to powerful. They were also concerned that the Constitution gave too much power to the national government at the expense of the state governments. However, they believed that a bill of rights was essential to protection the people from the federal government.

After the American Revolution our nation was in major debt and suffering from an ecumenic depression throughout the colonies. The debt and other fiscal issues our nation was facing made some of the founding political members to want a more focused federal power. The opinions of two groups known as the Federalists and Anti-Federalists were divided about the new proposed Constitution. The founding members known as the Federalists wanted a strong central government and weak state governments were in favor of keeping the newly proposed Constitution,whereas the opposing group of men were known as the Anti-Federalists were opposed to it. The Anti-Federalists had believed that the power should belong to the states and not the central government, and that the nation should keep the Articles of Confederation despite the fact that it had failed. In the time period of 1787-1788 the views and ideas of the Federalists would have been better than those of the Anti-Federalists for more than one reason.

The major reason why Anti-federalists opposed the ratification of the new constitution was because they feared that it gave too much power to the national government. In an article called ‘Ratifying the constitution- Anti-federalists’ it states, “Having just succeeded in rejecting what they saw as the tyranny of British power, such threats were seen as a very real part of political life. To Anti-federalists the proposed Constitution threatened to lead

The federalist wanted the state government to have less powers than the central government because they thought it was the best way to keep the States together. The anti-federalist on the other hand were more in favorite of the states having more power in order to prevent any kind of tyranny. George Bryan an anti-federalist said this " to declare that each state retains it sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction and right,which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled." If more power was given to the states we could be sure that our rights would not be infringed. Another reason the anti-federalist didn’t like the constitution and wanted to stay with states having more power is the the Constitution did not give a bill of rights. Some of the people who wanted the states to have more more power was Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, and John

While the anti-Federalists believed the Constitution and formation of a National Government would lead to a monarchy or aristocracy, the Federalists vision of the country supported the belief that a National Government based on the Articles of the Confederation was inadequate to support an ever growing and expanding nation.

The Antifederalists were obviously opposed to the Constitution, and they were in full support of the Articles of Confederation. The Antifederalists leaders, like Patrick Henry, believed the Constitution challenged individual’s liberty. The Antifederalists acted in factions. As the Federalists believed in a strong central government, the Antifederalists thought this would get in the way of state sovereignty. Furthermore, other factions within the Antifederalists believed a strong, central government would reflect the government of Great Britain, in which they were trying to get away from. Patrick Henry publicly spoke out against the Constitution claiming it would give the States very limited power. The Constitution was to contain a president, army, and the power to tax. Henry and others viewed this as basically Great Britain. They were afraid that the