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Defending the Constitution
what is evidently the tendency of the Constitution: an entire subversion of
the legislative, executive, and judicial powers of the individual States.’’
The inquiring citizen, he concluded, need only examine the Constitution
itself, written ‘‘in general and indefinite terms, which are either equivocal,
ambiguous, or which require long definitions,’’ to appreciate the truth of
these remarks. ‘‘I question whether the world ever saw, in any period of
it, a court of justice invested with such immense powers.’’
In light of criticisms like these, the Anti-Federalists insisted that the
Constitution must either be rejected or substantially amended. Their
points of disagreement with the basic design of the system and its particular provisions varied from writer to writer, and they did not agree in all
respects. Taken together, however, their writings demonstrated a remarkable uniformity when we consider the distances in time and location, and
the limited means of communication from one State to the next in that era.
And on one issue they were almost unanimously agreed: the Constitution, because it conferred so much power upon the Federal government,
was a threat to personal freedom and States’ Rights. They believed,
therefore, that prohibiting the Federal government from abridging certain freedoms was absolutely essential. In the end, the Anti-Federalists
were wholly unsuccessful in their effort to change the language of the
Constitution and limit the power of the Federal government. They did
succeed, however, in persuading the Federalists to add a bill of rights to
the Constitution. This was their most important and lasting contribution
to the making of the American Constitution.
b. the federalist response
Although the essays written by Hamilton, Madison, and Jay (‘‘Publius’’)
in The Federalist were by no means the only thoughtful response to AntiFederalists’ arguments, they were surely the most influential. Over the
years they have come to be recognized as a primary source of understanding concerning the meaning and purpose of the Constitution. Indeed, no study of our political system and the ideas of the Framers is
complete without a reading of this great American classic.
In defending the Constitution, the authors of The Federalist faced the difficult task of explaining and justifying a document that differed sharply