If you’re an American who doesn’t know what the Federalists and Anti-Federalists were fighting about or doesn’t even know that such a fight happened, you need to immediately learn about it.
The actual debates framed in these terms began during the American Revolution. But the larger debate had been going on in the American colonies since the English Civil War, the time when a king was beheaded long before the French Revolution. The revolution as a struggle had been happening for generations prior to the official revolution. It was a fight that took its most clear form against colonial elites in conflicts such as the War of Regulation, turned into revolution against imperialism and elitism during the American Revolution, and then continued to flare up after the revolution in struggles against continued injustice and oppression as seen with Shay’s Rebellion and the slave revolts.
Right from the beginning, it divided the country into two factions that at times fought almost as ruthlessly with one another as they had done with the British soldiers. A two party system formed out of it, something many of the founders wanted to avoid and saw as a sign of failure. The debate and struggle of power would continue, the last founders living long enough to see the growing conflicts that would eventually overtake the country during the Civil War.
It was far more than a war of words, but words matter because they are powerful in shaping our minds. It is through words that we know the past which determines how we are able to envision the future. This old debate is at the heart of every conflict in US history, not even primarily a fight between the left and right. The revolution never ended. It just constantly took new forms and was fought on new battlefields. It was less violent at times, but it has never gone dormant.
The first thing to know about this is a point of confusion. The Anti-Federalists were the strongest supporters of Federalism. But they lost the war of rhetoric, partly because the (pseudo-)Federalists smashed their printing presses and passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, basically making free speech illegal only years after free speech was used to win the revolution.
The Anti-Federalists (AKA the real Federalists) warned about many things that have since come to pass. Many of their predictions were proven true even in their lifetime, such as the Alien and Sedition Acts. The Anti-Federalists were trying to prevent the problems before they happened. But the oligarchic (pseudo-)Federalists didn’t see concentrated wealth and power as a problem, as many of them wanted a ruling elite to act similarly to the British monarchy and aristocracy.
Here is the tricky part. Obviously, the Anti-Federalists lost power and that is why we have the present dysfunctional political system. It is easier to prevent problems than to solve them after they’ve been entrenched for centuries. Regaining the original Anti-Federalist vision that inspired the American Revolution and founded a new nation is much more difficult because almost all memory of it has been written out of the mainstream history books, censored from political debate, and so erased from public memory.
A good first step would be for more people to simply learn about it. There is no way for Americans to fight for freedom and liberty, justice and fairness when they lack comprehension of what those values mean within the American tradition. Those values were betrayed. The Anti-Federalists can help Americans understand why that happened and what was lost.
The voice and echo of the Anti-Federalists was heard…
When Patrick Henry declared, “Give me liberty or give me death”… When Paine advocated for a basic income in compensation for the privatization of the commons… When women voted in New Jersey right after the American Revolution… When the citizens of Vermont abolished slavery almost a hundred years before the rest of the country…
When Lincoln stated that, “Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital”… When FDR pushed for a Second Bill of Rights… When Eisenhower warned of the Military-Industrial Complex…
When Thoreau went to prison for not paying taxes that supported war of aggression… When Darrow fought for the separation of church and state within public education… When Debs spoke out for the working man… When MLK demanded freedom and justice for all…
When third party candidates such as Nader have challenged the two-party stranglehold… When the largest protest movement in world history formed to oppose the Iraq War, a war of aggression, before it even began… When Americans desecrate symbols of oppression and violence… When Americans demand their forces be heard as authoritarianism threatens…
And on and on. It continues.
We Anti-Federalists are still here. And we will go on reminding our fellow Americans what real Federalism is about. If you believe in a free democratic society, if you support basic human rights and civil liberties, if you oppose injustice and oppression, then you might be an Anti-Federalist and not know it.
Join the revolution! But remember, the revolution begins in the mind.
Marmalade 