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Anti-Federalism was a late-18th-century political movement that opposed the creation of a stronger U.S. federal government and which later opposed the ratification of the 1787 Constitution. The previous constitution, called the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union , gave state governments more authority.
As such, the Anti-Federalists focused on explicitly listing out the individuals' rights and freedoms including free practice of religion, press, legal rights, and arms for protection from both their fellow man and government military occupation like what they faced during the Revolution.
Brutus was the pen name of an Anti-Federalist in a series of essays designed to encourage New Yorkers to reject the proposed Constitution. His essays are considered among the best of those written to oppose adoption of the proposed constitution. [1] They paralleled and confronted The Federalist Papers during the ratification fight over the ...
The Anti-Federalists also objected to the new powerful central government, the loss of prestige for the states, and saw the Constitution as a potential threat to personal liberties. [7] During the ratification process, the Anti-Federalists presented a significant opposition in all but three states.
The Federalists of this time were rivaled by the Anti-Federalists, who opposed the ratification of the Constitution and objected to creating a stronger central government. [14] The critiques of the Constitution raised by the Anti-Federalists influenced the creation of the Bill of Rights . [ 15 ]
This category contains people and groups that were part of the first American Anti-Federalist movement of the 1780s. This movement opposed the creation of a stronger national government under the Constitution. This is a distinct meaning from anti-Federalist as the term applies to the 1790s, where it applied to those who opposed the policies of ...
Anti-Federalists feared the Constitution would lead to an over-centralized government and diminish individual rights and liberties. They sought to amend the Constitution, particularly with a Bill of Rights as a condition before ratification. Federalists insisted that states had to accept or reject the document as written.
Nevertheless, the weakness of the central government, and the desire of anti-federalists to keep a federal government from assuming powers held by the state governments, greatly hindered diplomacy. [69] In 1776, the Continental Congress had drafted the Model Treaty, which served as a guide for U.S. foreign policy during the 1780s.