Were The Federalists Or Antifederalists Right?

[Outinleftfield]

For class I have to submit a paper about who was right, federalists or antifederalists. I disagree with both of them. The federalists were representing the interests of wealthy industrialists and antifederalists wealthy planters. Neither was representing the interests of the exploited classes of workers and slaves. The paper doesn't give that as an option though it requires I argue that one side or the other was right. Which side should I support?

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

This should be in Theory I think.

[JazzRemington]

If it's a university paper, you might get away with doing it anyway.

[Dean]

You could argue that the industrialists were right because industrialization is a necessary stage before capitalism, and subsequently socialism.

Anways, Moved to History. 03-30-10 Dean

[mikelepore]

In addition to what Dean said, I think the political realm also has a necessary stage. The federalists better represented the trend of introducing republics to sweep away the monarchies and aristocracies throughout the world.

[Kléber]

The bourgeois Federalists were against the slaveowners' interests even if they still saw the need to stay together with the slave power in a nation for mutual protection against the threat of foreign intervention. John Adams supported the Haitian Revolution, sent guns and ammunition to the forces of Toussaint Louverture. Once Thomas Jefferson came into power he recalled the US envoy to Saint-Domingue and cut off aid to Louverture, which gave the French Empire a free hand to invade the island and attempt to restore slavery. Napoleon Bonaparte noted that with a Democratic-Republican in the White House, "The Spaniards, the British and the Americans are equally worried to see a Black Republic."

[JacobVardy]

The bourgeois Federalists were against the slaveowners' interests even if they still saw the need to stay together with the slave power in a nation for mutual protection against the threat of foreign intervention. John Adams supported the Haitian Revolution, sent guns and ammunition to the forces of Toussaint Louverture. Once Thomas Jefferson came into power he recalled the US envoy to Saint-Domingue and cut off aid to Louverture, which gave the French Empire a free hand to invade the island and attempt to restore slavery. Napoleon Bonaparte noted that with a Democratic-Republican in the White House, "The Spaniards, the British and the Americans are equally worried to see a Black Republic."

Thanks, i'd not heard that about Adams. Everything i have read says that the US was universally hostile to the Haitian Revolution.

[anticap]

Depending how you approach it, you could argue either way. On the one hand you've got the valid points raised here in favor of the Federalists; but you might also consider, e.g., Madison's comments that the state "ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority," and observe how eager his side was to replace the Articles, which they felt didn't go far enough in that regard.

Beard's Economic Interpretation of the Constitution (http://books.google.com/books?id=P9QpAAAAYAAJ) may be of use to you regarding these considerations. A friend recently sent me a lovely passage from it, written again by a candid Madison:


The most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property. Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society. ... [Those with varying economic interests are divided] into different classes actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principle task of modern legislation....

Sound like anyone we know? :marx: Here's the leading voice for the Federalists openly declaring what his ideological descendants now bitterly deny: that the state is an instrument of class oppression; but, moreover, that it is right and just that this be so.

Food for thought. :)

[CartCollector]

The essay where Madison speaks about "faction" and why it should be controlled is Federalist #10: http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa10.htm

I have to say, though, that those that support the Constitution because of historical necessity have a point. You have to remember that the bourgeoisie had just seized power from the hands of the monarchy. It had to institute a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie to prevent the monarchy from taking power again. We know that the monarchy tried to do this with the War of 1812 and arguably the Civil War (Britain sent weapons to the Confederacy). Would a looser, Articles of Confederation based US have been able to resist and defeat the monarchy?

[Jacobinist]

The US has always been in and out of Haitian politiks. Recently in the 30's, it even physically occupied Haiti with US marines and a puppet government.

With the federalists/anti-federalists its one in the same. The federalists weren't against oppression or slavery. They weren't against giving inidan tribes blankets with small pox and puishing them of the land. They simply wanted a centralized/organized government. The antifederalists, much like today's small government jack-asses, wanted the states to decide with a loosely linked series of states and militias.

Although libertarian tendency tells me to side with the anti-federalists, I know too well that it was the federal government that ended slavery, the Jim Crowe era, Segregation, and allowed women, minorities universal suffrage. That being said, both were racist, wealthy bankers and land owners, fuck them both.

Be original and critique both of them for your article.

[Martin Blank]

The essay where Madison speaks about "faction" and why it should be controlled is Federalist #10: http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa10.htm

I have to say, though, that those that support the Constitution because of historical necessity have a point. You have to remember that the bourgeoisie had just seized power from the hands of the monarchy. It had to institute a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie to prevent the monarchy from taking power again. We know that the monarchy tried to do this with the War of 1812 and arguably the Civil War (Britain sent weapons to the Confederacy). Would a looser, Articles of Confederation based US have been able to resist and defeat the monarchy?

This.

I think the best thing to do is start by reading through the Federalist Papers and seeing where you would stand, if you were in post-revolutionary America at the time they were written. Explore Alexander Hamilton's economic and fiscal policies, especially when it comes to industrialization and the role of corporations, since they form the economic backbone of the Federalist "faction".

Neither side can be seen as "clean" in the post-revolutionary period, however. Both Federalists and Anti-Federalists supported the suppression of Shays' Rebellion, and both sides supported replacing the Articles with the Constitution. The later evolution of "Jeffersonian democracy", which is predicated on a slaveholding society, always struck me as a con job, so I always found myself sympathetic to the Federalists.