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Who were the Antifederalists and why did they oppose the Federalists proposals for government?
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Who were the Antifederalists and why did they oppose the Federalists proposals for government?
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Who were the Antifederalists and why did they oppose the Federalists proposals for government?
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The Anti-Federalist Society discusses the split between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists on the basis of government. The Federalists wanted to change the Articles of Confederation but were actually monarchists in disguise. They did not want to protect the rights of the people and refused to add a Bill of Rights to the Constitution. The Federalists also wanted control over the Western lands. Despite obstacles, the Dickinson draft gave Congress power over the controversial issue of these lands. The New England states feared a New England democracy and the domination of the national government. The state legislatures did not ratify the Constitution. ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ្ទ� welcome back folks to the Anti-Federalist Society and we will look at what we were able to touch on in our last lesson and so we will be moving forward on that premise so I think the thing that is so important here to understand if we take anything at all away from that message that we had in the last one the thing that is so vitally critical that we understand here is the fact that the founders the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists were split upon a basis of government the Anti-Federalists wanted to keep the Articles of Confederation and even the Federalists themselves meant that they were Articles of Confederation were there to protect the natural rights of men they admitted it but then they also admitted that they wanted to change they didn't like that the Federalists as we know most of them were members of the wealthy aristocracy or they wouldn't have been at the Constitutional Convention there were a few you know Patrick Henry refused to go and we know that but these things we were never taught and that was that these Federalists were actually monarchist in drag they wanted a monarchy they said so at the Constitutional Convention on more than one occasion Edmund Randolph Alexander Hamilton Biddle so many of them said they wanted a monarchy form of government monarchical form of government they just didn't want to call it a monarchy but arose by any other name right so as I said if you're going to understand the rest as we move forward if you're going to understand the truth about this country's history you have to understand unequivocally that these Federalists were not out there to protect the rights of the people that was never their goal they said so they also refused to add a Bill of Rights to the Constitution now why would they do that if they had gone to Philadelphia to prepare a form of government that would protect the liberties of the people as they claim they did why would they not have and why would they have voted down the addition of a Bill of Rights unanimously by state but in starting today's chapter we're going to drop back in history just a bit so that you know we can make sure that we get all of the foundation here properly but let's go back June the 7th 1776 Richard Henry Lee of Virginia now remember this is a month before the Declaration of Independence right Richard Henry Lee of Virginia moved that the colonies were and of a right ought to be free and independent states that they should form a confederation and that committee should be appointed to draw up the documents well the Federalist monarchist opposed the motion in their own estimation they were the sensible part of the government they did not object to the formation of a confederation or the formulation of plans for a treaty with France but from the Federalist monarchist point of view the only reason offered for declaring independence was the reason of a madman a show of our spirit again take the Federalist at their word not once they got to the convention or after the convention for ratification but take their word for what they said prior to their ever being the creation of our government independence would only render the colonies ridiculous in the eyes of the foreign powers who would not unite with the colonies before they had united among themselves was the belief of these Federalist likewise daily experience showed that the inhabitants of every colony consider themselves at liberty to do as they please upon almost every occasion now listen to that the Federalist found a problem with this they found a problem with rightful liberty and they said so again the quote that the inhabitants of every colony consider themselves at liberty to do as they please upon almost every occasion unquote so it's real simple yes they wanted to be free just like the people today would love to be free but the Federalist did not want the people to be free gosh we gotta get that across John Dickinson Robert R Livingston James Wilson Edward Rutledge and James Duane all to become unwilling revolutionist within a month and they all led the Congress in opposition to declaring independence from King George and Britain consideration of the question was thus delayed until July the first when John Dickinson made a formal speech in which he set forth the Federalist views for the last time before the adoption of the Declaration of Independence he pleaded once more the necessity the absolute necessity of having a union before any Declaration of Independence and pointed to the difficulties of the committee engaged in the preparation of Articles of Confederation in particular he urged the necessity of a central power to control the Western lands folks the Federalist these wealthy aristocracy were looking out there at the expansive territory of let's just say Georgia and North Carolina and Virginia if you look that all the way to the Mississippi these people were looking at that land you gotta remember one of the biggest land speculators going back that time was George Washington and his friend Robert Morris land speculators this was something they had to have it because they wanted to control those Western lands folks is it any different today as we look at people who want empires have they ever acted any different they want to control the land they want to control everything and we're knee-deep well we're probably deeper than knee-deep in that right now but once independence was declared the Federalist continued to hope for the establishment of a supreme national legislature there is no clearer statement of this the desire than that by Joseph Reed who was at the time the private secretary to George Washington he was still in hopes of reconciliation with King George but he was for a national union among the thirteen states irregardless or should I say regardless he was opposed to a union of the third no I mean he was for a union before it before independence as well but he said that more local authority should be subservient to the supreme decisions of Congress people is that not what you have now when the states want to do something not unless the feds go along with it let's not ever forget that that wonderful thing called Obamacare that before the Supreme Court decision in which John Roberts the good old John Roberts made declarations which were totally untrue he said that all it was a tax when the legislation itself said it wasn't a tax but you were going to get Obamacare but there were 37 states at that time that were saying no we don't want this we don't like that well 37 is more than half wouldn't you say it's so majority rules no majority doesn't rule they did the central all encompassing government just overrules anything that people do that the federal government considers to be anywhere as an impediment to their desires well the Federalist had an opportunity of sorts to create the government they desired for they dominated the committee which prepared the first draft of the Articles of Confederation look how this changes folks this is critical it was presented to Congress in the handwriting of John Dickinson to a degree this first draft of the Articles of Confederation was an expression of the Federalist desire for a strong central government superior over the states in the committee they made a strenuous effort to destroy provincial distinction as they called it and to make as they quoted everything of the most minute kind been to what they call the good of the whole unquote man oh yeah yes the good of the whole which means what's best for the wealthy aristocracy but this draft by John Dickinson which was presented to Congress did not contain many practical measures for the achievement of their goals now I guess we could look at a lot of things and say okay well why did this first declaration of the first Articles of Confederation why did they fail in the Congress which was dominated primarily by Federalist the two radicals on the committee doubtless exercise some influence more important was the fact that the southern Federalist were obsessed with a fear of a New England democracy or in other words they knew they were outnumbered and they would have absolutely no representation they were convinced that the national government would subject the whole country to the rule of New England and New England alone probably the greatest restraint upon the work of the committee was the realization that most of the state governments would never ever knowingly accept a superior government over them now stop and think about that folks the type of government they wanted to create they knew from the beginning that the states would not accept it so thus we kind of think a little bit forward to little Jimmy Madison and his Virginia plan and the when he talked to Hamilton and when he talked to Edmund Randolph they talked of getting it ratified not by the state legislatures that had to be avoided they could not allow the state legislatures to vote to ratify the Constitution now today we've got all these people all it was ratified by the states and I know it wasn't it was ratified by committees conventions the states did not ratify they had state conventions but the state legislatures the voice of the people did not ratify this Constitution so in spite of the obstacles that were in the way of this strong central national government the Dickinson draft gave to Congress power over what was probably the most important subject of controversy at the time and again it was all of those lands to the West the New England states were landlocked they couldn't grow they couldn't add they knew that there was only going to be so many people they could add but they knew with the vast expanse of let's just look at Virginia because Virginia back then was Virginia Kentucky northern Indiana northern Ohio and northern Illinois they powers that be in New England felt that they had to be able to command control of those lands well this is what was really strange Congress was given the power in that first set of Articles of Confederation to limit the size of states to define their boundaries and to settle disputes over rival land claims imagine that this grant of power was the most bitterly contested issue during the writing and ratification of the Articles of Confederation states with definite western boundaries like Maryland and Pennsylvania were in bitter opposition as I mentioned before to states like Virginia whose land claims were vast in extent and we just talked about what it what they covered the landless states wanted to share in the profits expected from the future sales of these lands and their speculators wanted their pre-revolutionary land claims made good they also feared the domination of Virginia should she expand into the West hence the landless states appeal to a strong centralized government after independence as they had just as they had asked King George for before only a superior power could force the landed states to surrender the property that was in their states to the federal government for or to land speculators the appeal was all the more effective since the leading politicians of these landless states were also their leading land speculators imagine that but the landed states defeated this effort to give Congress large powers and for their further security they added to the Articles of Confederation in their final form a provision to the effect that no state was to be deprived of its territory without its consent folks that had to be circumvented the question of the basis of representation likewise involved the question of the nature of the government to be created so let's take a look at that was each state to have one vote in Congress like or were the states to be represented in Congress in proportion to their population or in proportion to their wealth which was also presented the richest states they wanted to give representation according to how much money each state had yes that is in fact true the first Congress had decided that each state should have but one vote and Dickinson draft continued that precedent but the large states led by Pennsylvania Massachusetts and Virginia insisted that both should be according to population they engaged in a dialectical argument to gain their end and to win over their point of view the most significant argument used was that the delegates in Congress represented the people of the United States and not the people of the states that's a theme that continues you want to pay special attention to that one and that therefore voting should be according to population the individuality of the colonies is a mere sound said John Adams so people who think that all we had state rights we had state rights everybody wanted state rights up until Abraham Lincoln well that just proves how well that that communist Marxist indoctrination has worked on you the radicals or we could call them the future anti-federalist oppose this proposed measure so dangerous in its implication for self-government within the states the small states opposed it for they feared they would be either swallowed up or dominated by their large neighbors in answer to the contentions of the large states they insisted that the members of Congress represented the states and not individuals and that every colony is a distinct person the final result was a victory for these future anti-federalist and the victory for the small states as well because each state had one vote in the deliberations of Congress the controversy over representation was a far more consequence than as evidence of a struggle between large and small states it also involved the question of sovereignty the location of the ultimate political authority the location of sovereignty during the American Revolution was a question of practical politics it was not a question of constitutional metaphysics no one realized this better than contemporary politicians of the day who believe that the colonists could choose between a sovereign state or a number of confederated sovereign states when they organized their government when they put it together so we're going to have what we have now or were we actually going to have a government to where the states actually had a say in their own governance well the Federalists demanded that Congress be given the preponderance of power the future anti-federalist insisted that it could be retained by the individual states well the John Dickinson draft expressed the wishes of the Federalist it placed but one unqualified restraint upon the power of Congress Congress was not to levy any taxes or duties except for the maintenance of the post office boy have we come a long way on the other hand the states were given but one guarantee of internal independence and self-government and that a conditional guarantee the states were guaranteed control of their internal police for such control did not interfere with the Articles of Confederation now the implication of this was that the vast number of undefined powers was lodged in Congress since but one specific restriction was placed upon its activity while but one specific guarantee was made to the states and that one subject to interpretation in the light of the articles in other words the government would be the final arbiter of its own power sound familiar the Dickinson draft therefore provided the legal basis for a government of potentially national powers no one realized this more clearly than did the Caledonian mr. James Wilson of Philadelphia who declared in the convention of 1787 that in the beginning Congress had constituted a single state and that the original draft of the Confederation was drawn on the first idea of Congress as a single state and that the draft concluded how different hmm so to achieve their purposes the Federalists argued over and over that Congress represented the people and not the states and that the Americans were one nation Oh people yeah biggest lie in American history the implication was that the government to be created was a national government and again mr. Wilson of Pennsylvania set forth this view at length he defined government as a collection of the wills of all of the people yeah like you could ever do that Congress he said did not represent the states it represented the people in aggregate and I quote from mr. Wilson it has been said that Congress is a representation of states not of individuals I say that the objects of its care are all the individuals of all of the states as to those matters which are referred to Congress we are not so many states we are one large state we lay aside our individuality whenever we come here unquote folks they said openly what they wanted they said openly what they were going to do and we still contend to the heavens that they made something else well John Adams declared that the Confederation was to make the colonies into one single individual and here's his quote it is to form us like separate parcels of metal into one common mass we shall no longer retain our separate individuality unquote that's for all you people out there who think everything was just fine until Abraham Lincoln good old Benjamin Rush the physician added a refining touch later elaborated in the convention of 1787 this was to the effect that a portion of the people's rights were deposited in the hands of legislatures and a portion in the hands of Congress we represent the people we are now a new nation he said stop and think about that what these federalists thought that a portion of the people's rights are deposited in the hands of legislatures and a portion in the hands of Congress hmm okay do we even have that today no because the federal government overrules the states anytime they want to so the radicals were not befuddled or the future anti-federalists were not befuddled by these arguments they were not snowed under in any way shape form or fashion well they made a clear distinction between a national and a federal form of government and this is what it did was it hammered home the point that Congress was at work creating a federal government of independent states not one national state in spite of the awareness of the distinctions between a federal and national government none of the future anti-federalists seem to have sensed the significance of the Dickinson draft as I go back and look at that I am convinced no one in the early stages of the controversy was aware of the necessity of a specific statement of the apportionment of powers this failure was in part due to the subtleties and the complexities of the Dickinson draft of which a contemporary had said that it had the vice of all his productions the vice of refining too much unquote well the debates naturally concerned themselves with easily discernible issues such as the West and representation furthermore there was no time for the deliberation necessary to discover underlying implications for the Confederation was dropped from consideration in August of 1776 and after less than a month's debate they just forgot it and it was not discussed again until April of the next year the question of the general nature of the Union did not become an issue until 1777 shortly after the arrival in Congress now here's something was happening they had term limits so back then as the state sent new people to Congress as they begin to see what the federalists were actually trying to do the anti-federalist or the future anti-federalist began to elect the people who represented their point of view and so the federalist in many ways lost their control over the Congress during the first part of 1777 much time was taken up with debates on quote whose object on one side is to increase the power of Congress and on the others to restrain that power Thomas Burke soon discovered that the landless states were determined to make Congress powerful enough to take the Western lands away from those states and away from the people of those states this desire really stoked Mr. Burke's suspicion Congressman Burke's suspicion and a series of debates over the relative power of Congress and the states stirred him to positive action now there's a county in North Carolina that's named for Mr. Burke, Burke County just a little bit down the mountains from Asheville on the eastern side but I tell you what it would be fun to go to Burke County today and to find out go to the high schools in that county and find out how many people even have a clue including the teachers who Thomas Burke was and what Thomas Burke had to say especially and how instrumental he was because he wrote one of the Articles of Confederation himself and you're going to find out just how critical that was pardon me there folks sorry about that but James Wilson was one of the few conservative leaders now we call them conservative I hate that word was one of the few conservative federalist monarchist whatever name you want to put on these jaspers but he was one of the few that was still left there and he was doing everything he could to establish precedence for the supremacy of Congress over the states folks it's important that we understand this these people we call founders never wanted the states to have any authority whatsoever and they said it over and over and over again but we just aren't taught that we're taught oh look how wonderful they are they were inspired by God yeah who's God but when the New England states held an informal meeting and sent a report to Congress Wilson then made a determined effort to twist the meeting into an affair requiring the approval of Congress and I quote to the end that this approbation might imply a right to disapprove unquote the result of the attempt was what one member described as a long metaphysical debate during its course Benjamin Rush went so far as to assert flat out that the meeting had actually usurped the powers of Congress the radicals or the future anti-federalists were quick to resent so daring an assumption of power Samuel Adams asserted that the right to assemble and to discuss measures for promoting liberty and happiness was the privilege of a free man or free person that it was dreaded only by tyrants like Governor Hutchinson Richard Henry Lee pointed out that the unconfederated Congress had no powers whatsoever so then James Wilson jumps back in and he leads an attempt to have Congress pass laws authorizing local officials to pick up men suspected of desertion from the military or the Revolutionary Army thus the intervention of local governments was to be evaded Thomas Burke opposed this attempt with quite a presentation his arguments were an epitome of the radical attitude of the people towards a strong central government he said that if the acts of Congress were to be enforced by the authority of Congress it would give Congress power to prostrate law state laws and state constitutions because it might thereby create a power within a state which could act independently of the state hmm interesting the effect of these controversies on men like Burke was to increase in them the conviction as Burke would say and I quote that unlimited power cannot be safely trusted to any man or set of men on earth unquote yay Thomas Burke let me read that again that unlimited power cannot be safely trusted to any one man or set of men on this earth unquote thus when the Articles of Confederation were once more taken up for consideration by the Congress Thomas Burke was quick to sense that the third article of the Dickinson draft was absolutely chocked full of danger for the independence of the states this article in Burke's words and I quote expressed only a reservation of the power of regulating the internal police and consequently resigned every other power unquote now Burke was convinced that to leave it as Dickinson had wrote it was to leave it in the power of the future Congress or General Counsel to explain away every right belonging to the states and to make their own power as unlimited as they please unquote well folks they have it today it's called the federal courts Burke therefore proposed an amendment to the Confederation stating that all and I quote listen to this all sovereign power was in the state separately and that particular acts by those states which should be expressly enumerated would be exercised in conjunction and not otherwise but that in all things else each state would exercise all the rights and power of sovereignty uncontrolled by a central power unquote members of Congress were so slow to become aware of the significance of the proposed amendment that even a second was wanting for quite a period of time in this after Burke's proposal James Wilson and Richard Henry Lee furnished opposing viewpoints but eventually 11 states voted for it as it stands in the articles the amendment reads listen to this folks each state retains its 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 that is article two of the Articles of Confederation and to me it's just absolutely beautiful but we all know that was one of the clauses one of the articles that the Federalist felt like it was something that just had to be defeated in their minds they couldn't allow these states to have this kind of power they just couldn't do it and they weren't going to allow the states to have this kind of power and thus they pushed for a new Constitution yes it was vital to the Federalist effort to the Federalist monarchist that they make sure that this second article is never ever a part or plays into the ability of the Federalists to control the government what the Constitution or Articles of Confederation thus written was presented to the states for unanimous ratification before it could be declared in operation unanimous ratification was delayed for years by the continuance of the controversy over congressional control of the Western lands now we were never taught this this was one of the reasons that it took so long to get it done Maryland finally refused to ratify at all unless the landed states would agree to make some session of their Western lands to Congress well that was finally done in 1780 and on March the 1st 1781 the Articles of Confederation became the first Constitution of the United States this Constitution was as the Caledonian James Wilson said later how different the constitutional relationship between the states and their common government was quite unlike what it had been in Dickinson's draft the vast field of undefined unenumerated powers now lay within the states rather than with the central government Congress was rigidly restricted within the bounds of precisely delegated authority expressly delegated authority which simply means for those of you hampered by a communist education system is that the government can't do it unless it is specifically written that they can do it they do not have the powers of implication under the Articles another reason that it had to go in the eyes of these Federalist monarchists so Congress was the creature of the states and ultimately of the people of the states centralized government with a legal veto on laws with the power of general legislation and with the force of arms had disappeared with the Declaration of Independence the conservative or Federalist revolutionist had been unable to recreate the King George government over the American states in spite of their efforts to do so but they didn't quit did they they just kept coming the Constitution finally adopted was the Constitution of the elements of an American society which helped to bring about the American Revolution and so far as those elements were democratic the Constitution they created was democratic it was democratic because within a state the majority of the electorate could do as it pleased unhindered by external coercive and restrictive authority thus Edmund Randolph statement in the convention that we read before takes on new meaning and a vibrancy he objected then that the chief knowledge of the framers of the Confederation was human rights since then the chief danger arises from the democratic parts of our constitutions the powers of government exercised by the people swallows up the other branches none of the constitutions have provided a sufficient check against the people wake up folks the problem of the more general nature of the Articles of Confederation was law had lost sight of it I'm sorry let me state that again the problem of the more general nature of the Articles of Confederation was lost sight of in the confusion surrounding the controversy over controlling the Western lands as soon as the articles were ratified however an attempt was made to add nationalistic features to them this failed as did the efforts made to interpret the articles in a nationalistic form the language of the document was too explicit to admit of such interpretation even by the most adept legal gymnast yes ultimately as a result of circumstances and of careful planning the Federalist elements in American society were able to overthrow the Constitution they didn't like which they had had at one time and lost it and then wanted it back and to substitute it for the articles a constitution in keeping with their conception of political theory and practice well folks that kind of gives you the kind of a rundown there on things that I'm pretty sure that you were not ever taught in school I feel very very confident of that as a matter of fact because I've been through those schools right along with you well folks this just about completes our second lesson here on the Anti-Federalist Society and I hope that been able to bring across to you a lot of information that you have not had made available to you before now and I think that is one of the reasons that we're in the mess that we're in in this country is because we don't know our own history and as Marcus Tullius Cicero once said those who fail to learn the lessons of the people unaware of their own history I was about to mix George Santayana in there but the statement was is that a people unaware of their history shall remain forever children that was Mr. Marcus Tullius Cicero and he is spot-on look around you today because all everyone is interested in it seems are games children's games and it has just captured the minds and the souls of America and they pay no attention to how they are being manipulated and destroyed so folks if you can please support my work here on Substack with a paid subscription if not then you can certainly available for the others if you find them worthy and in the meantime I'd like to wish everyone a very beautiful week what's left of it and I pray daily for this the people of this country who really matter so thank you and looking forward to lesson number three
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