The debate surrounding the ratification of the Constitution holds a venerated place in the canon of American political thought, and the arguments for and against a Union of States which would be strong enough to weather the storms of history continue to rage around the same fundamental positions that fueled the debate centuries ago. The arguments in favor of a strong federal government were advanced by the Federalists, most notably James Madison and Alexander Hamilton, relatively young men and members of a generation whose lives were marked by the Revolutionary War. Those known as Anti-Federalists, most notably Patrick Henry and others that wrote anonymously such as Cato and Brutus, were of the generation that spearheaded the Revolution through an intense patriotism and an extreme distrust for a faraway government that was blind to the needs of its people. The arguments posed by the Anti-Federalists continued to fuel debate in the
The fact that the Anti-Federalists were vehemently opposed to the ratification of the Constitution in no way excludes them from inclusion to the venerated ranks of the nation’s Founding Fathers. Indeed, “the Anti-Federalists are entitled to be counted among the Founding Fathers, in what is admittedly a somewhat paradoxical sense, and to share in the honor and study devoted to the founding.”[1] Following the same vein, it is therefore necessary to rebuff the modern Liberal ascertain the Conservatives are a backwards and unimaginative lot; fearful of change and modern theories of government and sociological experimentation, thereby making them somehow un-American. In fact, Russell Kirk addressed this very issue by positing that
in sharp contrast with many who believed that the Constitution was intended to set up a stronger national government than the one under the Articles of Confederation, many Conservatives stressed the powers of individuals and states under the federal system. Indeed, at times they seemed to infuse an almost Anti-Federalist understanding of the Constitution.[2]
Like their ideological forbearers, mid-twentieth century Conservatives were greatly concerned with the massive expansion of the federal government that had occurred in their time under the auspices of the New Deal, which they saw as the forbearer of the infringement of the rights of states that they saw being perpetrated in the name of the then fledgling Civil Rights movement.
In addition, both the Anti-Federalists and the Conservatives in question were concerned about the consequences of what they perceived as a federal government that was gaining the power of tyrannical subjugation over its people. Yet it is interesting to note that both the Anti-Federalists and the Conservatives wound up taking the reigns of the very same expanded governments that they had protested against, as “the Anti-Federalists may have lost the contest over the Constitution, but by 1800 they and their Jeffersonian-Republican successors eventually won the larger struggle over what kind of society and culture America was to have, at least for a good part of the nineteenth century.”[3] The same is true for the mid-twentieth century Conservatives, whose movement coalesced around The National Review magazine which was established by William F. Buckley in 1955, gained ground with the Goldwater campaign in 1964, and then won the Presidency with the election of Richard Nixon in 1968. Since Nixon, five out of eight Presidents have been Conservative Republicans, an impressive track record by any means of comparison.
In order to better appreciate the comparison of the Anti-Federalists and the Conservatives, one must delve into the debates that swirled around the ratification of the United States Constitution. The Constitutional Convention of 1787 was initially called to address the failings of the national government which had been established under the Articles of Confederation, and it is important to stress the fact that this Convention did not have a mandate to establish a new government. Yet when the delegates emerged from these closed door proceedings with a Constitution that was radically different from the Articles of Confederation, those that protested the new document “saw in the Framer’s easy thrusting aside of old forms and principals threats to four cherished values: to law, to political stability, to the principals of the Declaration of Independence, and to federalism.”[4] In a rhetorical coup akin to today’s political strategy known as framing, Madison and Hamilton quickly took the identity of the Federalists, leaving those that were in opposition with the negative moniker of Anti-Federalist. However, those that were labeled as such were in all actuality in favor of an expansion of federal power, albeit under the auspices of the structure that had been established under the Articles of Confederation. In fact, “the Anti-Federalists stood for federalism in opposition to what the called the consolidating tendency and intention of the Constitution—the tendency to establish one complete national government, which would destroy or undermine the states.”[5] The Anti-Federalists were concerned with the vast new scope that the government under the new Constitution would have in its primacy over state governments, and were particularly worried over the lack of enumerated rights of the people which had previously been enshrined in the Declaration of Independence.
One of the most pertinent arguments of the ratification debates that had serious repercussions throughout the history of the
the Anti-Federalists could not consistently hold to the doctrine of state supremacy because they admitted it would lead to anarchy among the states. They could not accept national supremacy because they thought it would lead to centralized tyranny. To avoid both extremes is the somewhat dubious promise of the new federalism: to provide, somehow, for a government in which neither the whole or the parts are supreme.[6]
And there lies the conundrum with the Anti-Federalist position: How does a group protest changes that they knew were necessary and calling for themselves? The answer to that question is indeed a slippery one; however, a recurring theme is that of the anti-democratic nature of a republican government that was not directly held to the whims of the majority of its citizens.
The perceived anti-democratic nature of the Constitution as it was first presented to the American people at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention in 1787 was criticized widely in the American press in the months that followed its debut. One of the first of these criticisms was an anonymous series of letters authored by “Brutus” which appeared in
Starting with an admonition of the voracious nature of those that would hold power, Brutus warned that the ratification of the Constitution, the responsibility of which fell to the state legislatures, could in fact possibly bring about their own eventual irrelevance due to the nature of the Necessary and Proper Clause in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution. Brutus sternly warned that
the powers given by this article are very general and comprehensive, and it may receive a construction to justify the passing almost any law. A power to make all laws, which shall be necessary and proper, for carrying into execution, all powers vested by the constitution in the government of the United States, or any department or officer thereof, is a power very comprehensive and definite, and may, for ought I know, be exercised in a such manner as entirely to abolish the state legislatures.[7]
Brutus thought that the abolishment of state legislatures was inevitable due to the assumption that since the proposed federal government would be supreme over that of the state governments, they would pass an accumulated body of legislation that would increasingly render state governments irrelevant due to the fact that “it is a truth confirmed by the unerring experience of ages, that every man, and every body of men, invested with power, are ever disposed to increase it, and to acquire a superiority over every thing that stands in their way.”[8] This fear of tyranny and a complete lack in the faith of the better qualities of human beings superseding their worse ones in pursuit of the common good is not new and has by no means died off, as it is still a central tenet of Conservative philosophy which holds a fierce loyalty to the idea that every person is responsible for their own actions and has no business dictating to others how they live their lives or use their property.
Arguably the most prominent of the figures from the American Revolution to protest the new Constitution was Patrick Henry of
have they said, We, the sates? Have they made a proposal of a compact between states? If they had, this would be a confederation. It is otherwise most clearly a consolidated government. The question turns, sir, on that poor little thing — the expression, We, the people, instead of the states, of
Henry Felt that since the states had already formed governments and had already written Constitutions of their own, the establishment of a federal government that did not expressly acknowledge the primacy of state law in its own domain was tantamount to tyranny.
The issue of States Rights had worked its way into Conservative thought in the nineteen-forties and nineteen-fifties, a period in which Conservatives were searching for non-liberal allies to aid them in their opposition against the New Deal liberals. They found these allies in the American South, long one of the most conservative areas of the country. Indeed, the “South was graced (or burdened) with the lingering memory of the Lost Cause—a poignant source of additional appeal to Conservatives, some of whom half-believed at times that they also had been routed forever from the battlefields of history.”[10] This partnership was solidified in the wake of the 1954 Supreme Court decision Brown vs. Board of Education. In defense of White Southerners who were desperately trying to maintain the status quo in the face of desegregation, James Kilpatrick
unabashedly revived the old ‘compact’ theory of the Constitution: the nation was a union of States, sovereign States, whose powers were confirmed by the Tenth Amendment… [and that] when a dispute arose between a state and the federal government, the ultimate umpire was not the Supreme Court but the people acting in their states. Acting how? By resisting encroachments, by interposition of the state’s authority between the central government and its own citizens.[11]
Kilpatrick went on to denounce liberal claims that this situation was resolved by the Civil War, a notion that he vehemently disagreed with, arguing that “the states must use every device of interposition to restrain Federal usurpations.”[12] It must be stressed that there were many in the Conservative movement, especially in the North, who were disgusted by the racist policies that Kilpatrick was defending. However, the arguments that Kilpatrick made struck a chord within the movement, cropping up again in the wake of the Roe vs. Wade decision, something most Conservatives could agree upon opposing and one that they continue to protest today.
The vast and overwhelming reach of government into the lives of the American people is yet another tenet of the shared philosophy of the Anti-Federalists and the modern Conservative movement The unlimited power of the federal government was seen by the Anti-Federalists in the power that the Constitution gave to the Executive and Legislative Branches, and Conservatives echoed this sentiment through their deep resentment of the expansion of the federal government under the New Deal. As previously stated, many of those that fell into the Anti-Federalist camp wrote under assumed names in order to conceal their motivations and shield the debate from their public lives. One of these literary personalities was Cato, who is often thought to be George Clinton, then the Governor of the state of
is it because you do not believe that an American can be a tyrant? If this be the case you rest on a weak basis; Americans are like other men in similar situations, when the manners and opinions of the community are changed by the causes I mentioned before, and your political compact inexplicit, your posterity will find that great power connected with ambition, luxury, and flattery, will as readily produce a Caesar, Caligula, Nero, and Domitian in America, as the same causes did in the Roman empire.[13]
Cato felt that venerating the old Roman republic was well and good in principal, yet he felt that the blinders that the Federalists were wearing in order to promote this classical example of republicanism allowed them to conveniently ignore the fact that the Roman Empire arose from the chaos of a deadlocked and impotent republic, an oversight which Cato felt was tantamount to intellectual treason. Furthermore, Cato insisted that resting the fate of the new republic on the principal of American exceptionalism was extremely reckless at best.
Cato also felt that the small size of the House of Representatives established under the proposed Constitution in relation to the actual size of the American population was a breeding ground for a future despot because “it is a very important objection to this government, that the representation consists of so few; too few to resist the influence of corruption, and the temptation to treachery, against which all governments ought to take precautions.”[14] This is the one real place where conservative thought stands in opposition to that of the Anti-Federalists. While Cato claimed that the government would be too small to be successful, Twentieth Century Conservatives insist that the size of “Big Government” as the prime factor in its unwieldy impotence in affecting competent and effective governance of its people.
Indeed, Barry Goldwater tackled this very issue in his 1960 book The Conscience of a Conservative in which he disabuses the liberal notion that government has the responsibility to see to those needs of the people that they cannot address individually. Stating that “it is clear that this view is in direct conflict with the Constitution which is an instrument, above all, for limiting the functions of government, and which is as binding today as when it was written.”[15] This sentiment reflects the philosophy of the Strict Constructionist view of Constitutional interpretation, another of the fundamental positions of modern Conservatives. This position holds that the original intent of the Founders must be considered in any interpretation of the Constitution. This was an important point because, to Goldwater, “state power, considered in the abstract, need not restrict freedom: but absolute state power always does. The legitimate functions of government are actually conductive to freedom.”[16] Goldwater claimed that these legitimate functions of government included providing for the national defense, free trade, and the guarantee of individual freedom, all of which are tenets enshrined in the Constitution. This was key to Goldwater because
government can, instead of extending freedom, restrict freedom. And note… that the ‘can’ quickly becomes ‘will’ the moment the holders of government power are left to their own devices. This is because of the corrupting influence of power, the natural tendency of men who possess some power to take unto themselves more power. The tendency leads eventually to the acquisition of all power—whether in the hands of one or many makes little difference to the freedom of those left on the outside.[17]
This final sentiment is an integral component of modern Conservative thought, and rightly so, for it once again illustrates the debt that Conservatives owe to the Anti-Federalists. Even though they may not have necessarily agreed on the exact size of the federal government, both the Anti-Federalists and the Conservatives were concerned with the end result: the emergence of a tyrant from an undemocratic body like a republican legislature or a too powerful Executive that is removed from the direct control of the citizens it ostensibly serves. Furthermore, the concerns that the Anti-Federalists had with the tyrannical nature of the human animal were voiced time and again, and are in actuality responsible for the Bill of Rights, a document that enshrined the Rights that the Revolutionary generation held sacred.
An intellectual forebear of the above sentiments expressed by Barry Goldwater was Brutus. One of Brutus’ primary concerns about the new republic that would be established after the ratification of the Constitution concerned the vastness and diversity that said republic would have. By far the largest and most ambitious attempt at republican government in history until that point, Brutus shared the opinion of thinkers such as Montesquieu who felt that a republican form of government could only be successful on a small scale, writing that
if respect is to be paid to the opinion of the greatest and wisest men who have ever thought or wrote on the science of government, we shall be constrained to conclude, that a free republic cannot succeed over a country of such immense extent, containing such a number of inhabitants, and these increasing in such rapid progression as that of the whole United States.[18]
Brutus continued by claiming that the diverse nature of the population had different agendas and concerns, and that the mere act of trying to govern such a diverse polity would be near to impossible. However, this interpretation of history is flawed as it fails to take into account the fact that technology and communications had improved greatly over the many centuries since the fall of the classical republics of Greece and Italy, and due to advances in transportation and communication the point that Brutus was trying to make was all but irrelevant and lacked vision, as Madison pointed out in Federalist #10.
In all, the concerns that Brutus had over the nature of the human tendency toward tyranny were and remain pertinent, as they were brought about by the fear of establishing a government which in the end could prove to be more tyrannical than the government that the then fledgling nation had just fought to free itself from. However, while some of these arguments continued to hold weight, such as the arguments over States Rights and taxes, arguments concerning the doomed future of a large republic have been proven to be baseless in retrospect.
The Anti-Federalists were not, as stated previously, against a federal structure. However, they were however concerned about the lack of a Bill of Rights securing the rights of individuals from a tyrannical government. Indeed,
while the Anti-Federalists were concerned with individual liberty, which they thought depended on republican virtue, which in turn depended on maintaining the primacy of the states, they also wanted
Yet the Anti-Federalists argued against the vast new powers granted to the federal government that would be formed under the Constitution as opposed to the toothless national structure already in place under the Articles of Confederation. In fact, “generally, the Anti-Federalists admitted that a more efficient federal government was needed, although they qualified this admission in a number of ways,”[20] including, but not limited to, the need for the freedom of the press, the right to trial by jury, and the freedom from malicious prosecution. One of those that spoke out on the need for the protection of rights was Patrick Henry. Henry lambasted the absence in the original draft of the Constitution of the protection of rights that Americans had come to hold sacred, stating that
our rights and privileges are endangered, and the sovereignty of the states will be relinquished: and cannot we plainly see that this is actually the case? The rights of conscience, trial by jury, liberty of the press, all your immunities and franchises, all pretensions to human rights and privileges, are rendered insecure, if not lost, by this change, so loudly talked of by some, and inconsiderately by others. Is this tame relinquishment of rights worthy of freemen? Is it worthy of that manly fortitude that ought to characterize republicans?[21]
Vowing that he would reject the new Constitution with “Manly firmness”, Henry echoed his bombastic language used in his opposition to the Stamp Act over twenty years earlier in which he stated “give me Liberty, or give me death.”
Henry, no stranger to the oppressive nature of government, provided the basis of what Goldwater would argue against 150 years later when he derisively mocked the Federalist claim that good men would rise to power, scathingly remarking that
we are told that we need not fear; because those in power, being our representatives, will not abuse the powers we put in their hands. I am not well versed in history, but I will submit to your recollection, whether liberty has been destroyed most often by the licentiousness of the people, or by the tyranny of rulers. I imagine, sir, you will find the balance on the side of tyranny.[22]
It is the fear of tyranny that drove Henry, tyranny that he felt was inevitable due to the lack of an enumerated listing of individual rights, finishing his remarks to the Ratification Convention of the State of
my great objection to this government is, that it does not leave us the means of defending our rights, or of waging war against tyrants. It is urged by some gentlemen, that this new plan will bring us an acquisition of strength — an army, and the militia of the states. This is an idea extremely ridiculous: gentlemen cannot be earnest. This acquisition will trample on our fallen liberty. Let my beloved Americans guard against that fatal lethargy that has pervaded the universe. Have we the means of resisting disciplined armies, when our only defense, the militia, is put into the hands of Congress?[23]
To Henry, this was the most absurd conundrum of all. How were the people supposed to protect themselves from a tyrannical government if the defense of the nation and its people were the sole responsibility of said government? It is here that one can see the roots of the 2nd Amendment, which guarantees the right to bear arms, the sacred cow of the modern Conservative movement and one of the so called “Third Rails” of modern American politics.
Many of the Anti-Federalist grievances were addressed by the promise of the Federalists to draft a Bill of Rights enshrining the values that they held dear. Indeed, “the major legacy of the Anti-Federalists is the Bill of Rights. Many of their suggestions found their way into the proposals for amendment made by state ratifying conventions and thence into the first ten amendments adopted in 1791.”[24] This development took the wind out of the sails of Anti-federalist protest. In retrospect, it is evident that
the Anti-Federalists lost the debate over the Constitution not merely because they were less clever arguers or less skillful politicians but because they had the weaker argument. They were, as Publius said, trying to reconcile contradictions. There was no possibility of instating the small republic in the
If anything, the Anti-Federalists performed, for the first time in American history, the role of the Loyal Opposition, voicing dissent over policies that they agreed with on the surface yet had fundamental differences with in detail thereby creating a better government through compromise and debate rather than through obstruction, one lesson that it would appear that modern Conservatives have failed to learn.
It is important to reiterate the fact that a vast majority of Anti-Federalists dropped their objections to the Constitution after ratification and in many cases maintained their standing in American political life. Indeed, many Anti-Federalists found themselves allied with Thomas Jefferson and his Democratic-Republican Party, who took control of the very government that they had objected to a decade before and, upon taking power, oversaw the first true makings of an American empire in first the Louisiana Purchase and then later with the Monroe Doctrine, effectively manifesting the very behavior that they had argued so forcefully against; and thereby setting a precedent that has echoed into the modern age as the same is true of the Conservatives in the mid-twentieth century. Even though they coalesced as a movement by railing against an obtrusive and oppressive government, they supported and elected Richard Nixon, arguably one of the most corrupt and invasive abusers of the American people that ever held the office of President. This trend continued right through the Presidency of George W. Bush, who oversaw one of the most radical expansions of federal power with the passage of the Patriot Act and the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security. It is then therefore quite right to proclaim that the Anti-Federalists were indeed the forefathers of the modern Conservative movement, as their political philosophies and practices are so closely related that it is almost impossible to deny the relationship between these two very American groups.
[1] Storing, Herbert J. What the Anti-Federalists Were For.
[2] Nash, George H. The Conservative Intellectual Movement in
[3] Wood, Gordon S. The American Revolution: A History. The Modern Library,
[4] Storing. What the Anti-Federalists Were For. Pg. 7
[5] Storing. What the Anti-Federalists Were For. Pg. 10
[6] Storing. What the Anti-Federalists Were For. Pg. 33.
[7] Brutus #1. Appears in The American Intellectual Tradition. Compiled by Hollinger, D. & Capper, C.
[8] Brutus #1. Pg. 145
[9] Henry, P. Speech to the
[10] Nash, G. The Conservative Intellectual Movement. Pg. 199.
[11] Nash, G. The Conservative Intellectual Movement. Pg. 201.
[12] Nash, G. The Conservative Intellectual Movement. Pg. 202.
[13] “Cato”, Letter V. The New-York Journal, November 22, 1787. Appears in: The Anti-Federalist Papers and the Constitutional Convention Debates. Complied by Ketcham, R. Signet Classic,
[14] “Cato”, Letter V. Pg.320
[15] Goldwater, Barry. The Conscience of a Conservative. Retrieved from The Heritage Foundation’s website. URL: http://www.heritage.org/research/features/presidentsessay/presessay2004.pdf. Retrieved 5/13/2009. Pg. 21.
[16] Goldwater, B. The Conscience of a Conservative. Pg. 22.
[17] Goldwater, B. The Conscience of a Conservative. Pg. 22.
[18] Brutus #1. Pg. 145
[19] Storing. What the Anti-Federalists Were For. Pg. 24
[20] Storing. What the Anti-Federalists Were For. Pg. 24
[21] Henry, P. Speech to the
[22] Henry, P. Speech to the
[23] Henry, P. Speech to the
[24] Storing. What the Anti-Federalists Were For. Pg. 64.
[25] Storing. What the Anti-Federalists Were For. Pg. 71.
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