Anti-Federalists in the Twenty-First Century

The power of the federal government,

exercised without limitation, will introduce itself into every corner of the city and country. It ... will enter the house of every gentleman, watch over his cellar ... preside over the table, and note down all he eats or drinks; it will attend him in his bed-chamber, and watch him while he sleeps; it will take cognizance of the professional man in his office or his study; it will watch the merchant in the counting-house or in his store; it will follow the mechanic to his shop and in his work, and will haunt him in his family and in his bed; ... and finally ,it will light upon the head of every person in the United States. To all these different classes of people and in all these circumstances in which it will attend them, the language in which it will address them will be GIVE! GIVE!

You would be forgiven if you guessed that this passage came out of recent rhetoric from the so-called Tea Party. It is taken, however, from one of the more grandiloquent passages of the famous antifederalist Brutus during the heated debates over the proposed federal Constitution in 1787-88.

Which makes one wonder: if it were transported back to 1787, would the Tea Party have rejected the Constitution that today it professes to love and defend? Most likely, yes. 

This doesn't make their passion any less genuine, and it certainly doesn't mean that we should ignore the Constitution. I firmly believe the Constitution should be brought to bear on contemporary debates. But simplistic references to originalism and the Constitution as totemic touchstones are often historically confused and generally unhelpful, particularly when people have little idea about the substance of the debates over the Constitution when it was proposed and what they are defending (or rejecting).

Comments

[Peter G. Klein]

"If it were transported back to 1787, would the Tea Party have rejected the Constitution that today it professes to love and defend? Most likely, yes." Indeed, but if Hamilton, Madison, and the other most ardent Federalists were transported forward to 2011, and could see what the Federal government they helped establish has become, they would have fought against the Constitution tooth and nail!

Even the strongest nationalists during the Founding period couldn't have imagined a federal government as large and intrusive as the one we have today. If you read the Federalist/Antifederalist debates you can see the Federalists rushing to deny that a strong national government would ever do, well, most of what the US government does today.

[Dane Stangler]

Touche; an excellent point.

[supra footwear]

Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.

[Matt]

I think the battles during Jackson's era might be even more to the point. Too loose a union would lead to anarchy.

[Charles]

The ratification of the Constitution was, indeed, an infringement on individual liberties. That tea-party advocates are using a similar rhetoric to encourage a more federalist view of the document is not surprising. But Brutus certainly lost the tea-partiers when he expressed his fear of government involvement in the bed-chamber.

[Scott Hoversten]

The Constitution is not a totemic touchstone. It is a practical set of rules, intended to keep the rulers from doing whatever they decide is best. When it needs changing, it is amended, an intentionally difficult process. The Constitution is an anchor that keeps us from drifting away on the emotions of the moment.

[Taobao agent]

better late than never