Who were Anti-Federalists?

Anti-Federalists were the loose coalition of writers, politicians, and ordinary citizens who opposed ratification of the proposed Constitution from late 1787 through 1789, fearing that it would create a powerful national government dangerous to liberty and to state governments. They were not a unified party but a varied opposition with shared concerns. Prominent Anti-Federalists included George Mason and Patrick Henry of Virginia, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, Samuel Adams and Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, George Clinton and Melancton Smith of New York, Luther Martin of Maryland, and Edmund Randolph of Virginia (who initially refused to sign at the Constitutional Convention).

Their core objections fell into five categories. First, they argued the Constitution would consolidate power in a distant national government and diminish the states. Patrick Henry famously asked at the Virginia ratifying convention on June 5, 1788 why the document began "We the People" rather than "We the States," interpreting the change as evidence of a unitary national plan. Second, they feared the absence of a Bill of Rights left individual liberty unprotected from federal encroachment. George Mason published his Objections to the Proposed Federal Constitution in October 1787 listing the absence of a Bill of Rights as his first complaint, and his draft of the Virginia Declaration of Rights of June 12, 1776 became the model that James Madison drew on when he later drafted the federal Bill of Rights. Third, they worried that a republic of such size would inevitably become aristocratic or tyrannical, citing the writings of Montesquieu that republics required small territories. Fourth, they feared the federal taxing power, the federal judiciary's encroachment on state courts, and the standing army that the Constitution permitted. Fifth, they criticized specific provisions such as long terms in the Senate, the lack of rotation in office for the President, the elasticity of the Necessary and Proper Clause, and the supremacy clause.

The Anti-Federalists published widely under pseudonyms including Brutus, Federal Farmer, Centinel, and Cato in newspapers from Boston to Charleston between October 1787 and August 1788. Their essays were collected in modern editions known as The Complete Anti-Federalist edited by Herbert J. Storing in 1981.

Although they lost the ratification fight, they won a consequential concession: state ratifying conventions accompanied their approval with proposed amendments, and James Madison delivered a federal Bill of Rights in 1789 that became the first ten amendments ratified December 15, 1791. After ratification many Anti-Federalists joined the Democratic-Republican Party led by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.