Anti Federalists Dbq Essay

The Federalists and The Anti-Federalists: Two different ideologies

After the American Revolution, the United States had to face the war debt and challenges of constructing a new country. In an effort to create a system that solved these problems, they created the Constitution. In order to institute a new government under the Constitution, the ratification required the approval of nine states conventions. States that did not ratify the Constitution would not be considered as a part of the United States. The creation of the Constitution became a complicated process, especially between two political groups with different ideologies, who fought over the distribution of power. One group, the Federalists, supported Federalism who supported the

The debates emerged throughout all the states on whether the new Constitution was an improvement on the Articles of Confederation. Most members of Federalist were the Elites. According to Hamilton in Federalist #30, the first objective of the Constitution was to unify the states into one unified nation to which the federal government would provide an absolute power to support the national forces, civil lists, and currency (Document B). Without these three fundamental factors, the government would lack the capability to control violence and damage caused by factions. The state government had failed to succeed in solving these problems (Document A). In Shay’s Rebellion, the government was weak in controlling the national forces; the government did not control the situation, which led into a massacre. On the other hand, on the Whiskey rebellion, George Washington built a strong national force inside the Constitutional Republic that controlled the rebellion under their authority. No one was killed or injured. On the other side were the Anti-Federalists, who favored a weaker federal government in favor of an independent government for each state. Many

The Constitution set a government composed of three branches, the legislative, the executive, and the judicial. Each branch was given a certain power over one another to ensure that no one branch overcame the other power (Document G). The state legislatures would elect the members of the Senate, as well as select delegates to the Electoral College, which selected the president. And the president would appoint the judges in the Supreme Court, which they have the power to declare executive actions unconstitutional and impeach the president if necessary. Despite checks and balances, the Anti-Federalists considered that these branches composed of Elites, and were afraid that Elites would grant the too much power among the branches. In fact, the real power that that the middle class had for role in the Constitution was to elect the member of House of Representatives, which they had less power in the three branches. According to Brutus in Letter number IV of the Anti-federalist Papers, each state should have an equal, full, and fair representation, without this it cannot be a free government (Document F). This would lead the common man to no voices among these three branches.

The purpose of the creating the Constitution was to create a strong federal government that would