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Defending the Constitution
government, preferring instead a loose-knit confederation that allowed
the States to determine their own needs and interests. Why, asked Henry,
should Virginia, a State with a large population, vast resources, and extensive territory, compromise its sovereignty and share power with smaller,
less influential States? Given the great political, economic, cultural, and
geographical differences among the States, was a powerful union either
possible or desirable?
The Anti-Federalists did not think so. ‘‘Agrippa,’’ the pseudonym of a
Boston Anti-Federalist, warned the citizens of Massachusetts that the
new Constitution was impractical and dangerous. ‘‘We find,’’ he said,
that the very great empires have always been despotic. . . . It is impossible for one code of laws to suit Georgia and Massachusetts. . . . This
new system is, therefore, a consolidation of all the States into one larger
mass, however diverse the parts may be of which it is composed. The
idea of an uncompounded republic, on an average, one thousand miles
in length, and eight hundred in breadth, and containing six million
white inhabitants all reduced to the same standard of morals or habits,
and of laws, is in itself an absurdity and contrary to the whole experience of mankind. The attempt made by Great Britain to introduce such
a system struck us with horror, and when it was proposed by some theorist that we should be represented in Parliament, we uniformly declared that one legislature could not represent so many different interests for the purposes of legislation and taxation. This was the leading
principle of the revolution.
The Constitution Establishes an Aristocracy
The size and diversity of the existing confederation, in other words, led
the Anti-Federalists to believe that the union envisioned by the Framers
should not even be attempted.
By republicanism, the Anti-Federalists meant democratic selfgovernment, government close to the people, limited in scope, in which
the representatives were held directly accountable through frequent elections. The problem with the new Constitution, they argued, was that it
gave representatives too much power and independence. Once elected,