Читать книгу American Democracy in Context - Joseph A. Pika - Страница 82

Supporters of the Constitution and of the stronger national government it created quickly dubbed themselves Federalists. Opponents, who feared that the proposed national government would be too strong and who preferred that more power remain with the states, came to be known as Anti-Federalists. As Joseph J. Ellis has noted, however, both sides were really “Federalists,” which literally meant favoring a federal system wherein power would be shared between a central government and state governments. The two sides simply disagreed over how power should be allocated in that system.⁴⁵

Federalists started out with the upper hand in the debate. Their opponents lacked any substantive alternative to the Constitution except the Articles of Confederation, which were tainted with the stench of failure. Federalists were also aided by the fact that early ratifying conventions were in states that supported the Constitution; this would help to build momentum for ratification. Nonetheless, the Anti-Federalists probably reflected the sentiments of a majority of the American people, who remained deeply distrustful of a new and unfamiliar central authority and of its power to tax. Furthermore, many people still thought of themselves as citizens of their particular state rather than citizens of the United States. Indeed, ratification of the Constitution might well have failed had it depended on a national referendum (the method used by a number of countries in recent years, including Iraq in 2005).

A month after the Constitutional Convention ended, Federalists began publishing pro-Constitution articles in newspapers in New York, where ratification was in doubt. The articles appeared under the pseudonym “Publius” (Latin for “the people”), and in 1788, they were gathered together and published in two volumes as The Federalist. Now commonly known as the Federalist Papers, these 85 articles, written by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and (to a lesser extent) John Jay, provided not only a vigorous defense of the Constitution but also rich theoretical insights that still serve as a basis for understanding the Constitution today. In contrast with the populist tract Common Sense, which in 1776 helped to galvanize mass support for independence, the Federalist Papers failed to have a mobilizing effect among the general populace because they proved to be too dense and erudite for the average reader. They did influence and mobilize elites—Federalist delegates at the ratification conventions—but their greatest impact has been on subsequent generations who have used them as guides for interpreting the Constitution.

Those opposed to the Constitution penned their own articles under pseudonyms such as “Brutus” and “Cato” (the names of ancient Roman senators who decried tyranny when Julius Caesar took control away from the Senate and assumed power over the Roman Republic). These articles were written by a larger number of people than the Federalist Papers. The leaders of the Anti-Federalists included prominent individuals who had played important roles in the creation of the United States, such as George Mason and Patrick Henry. Their critique focused on the dangers of centralized power, which they worried would become despotic and infringe not only upon states’ rights but also upon individual liberties. The fact that the Constitution lacked a bill of rights fueled their concern. Having so recently fought a war of independence to secure liberty, many readers shared these writers’ wariness of a strong national government.