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Gerry, Clymer, Fitzsimmons, Boudinot, and Smith. The three Connecticut representatives, Sherman, Trumbull, and Wadsworth, made up perhaps the ablest state delegation in the body.

CHAPTER II.

FEDERALISM AND ANTI-FEDERALISM

EARLY in the life of our Constitution two parties rose, which, under various names, have continued ever since. During the strife for and against adoption, those favoring this had been styled Federalists, and their opponents, Anti-Federalists.

After adoption—no one any longer really antagonizing the Constitution-the two words little by little shifted their meaning, a man being dubbed Federalist or Anti-Federalist according to his preference for strong national government or for strong state governments. The Federalist Party gave birth to the Whig Party, and this to the modern Republican Party. The Anti-Federalists came to be called "Republicans," then "Democratic-Republicans," then simply "Democrats."

The central plank of the federalist platform was vigorous single nationality. In aid of this the Federalists wished a considerable army and navy, so that the United States might be capable of ample self-defence against all foes abroad or at home. Partly as a means to this, partly to build up national feeling, unity, self-respect, and due respect for the nation abroad, they sought to erect our national credit, which had fallen so low, and to plant it on a solid and permanent basis. As still further advancing these ends they proposed so to enforce regard for the national authority and laws and obedience to them, that within its sphere the nation should be absolutely and beyond question paramount to the State.

In many who cherished them these noble purposes were accompanied by a certain aristocratic feeling and manner, a carelessness of popular opinion, an inclination to model governmental polity and administration after the English, and an impatience with what was good in our native American

ideas and ways, which, however natural, were unfortunate and unreasonable. Puffed up with pride at its victory in carrying the Constitution against the opposition of the ignorant masses, this party developed a haughtiness and a lack of republican spirit amounting in some cases to deficient patriotism.

The early Federalists were of two widely different stripes. There were among them convinced and thorough patriots, theoretical believers in a consolidated authority, like Washington, Adams, Hamilton, and Jay; and there were the interested and practical advocates of the same, made up of business men and the wealthy and leisurely classes, who, without intending to be selfish, were governed in political sympathy and action. mainly by their own interests.

The greatest early Anti-Federalists were Jefferson, Madison, and Randolph, all of whom had been ardent for the Constitution. The party as a whole, indeed, not only acquiesced in the re-creation of the general Government, but was devotedly friendly to

the new order. admitted that a measure of governmental centralization was indispensable, they prized the individual State as still the main pillar of our political fabric, and were hence jealous of all increased function at the centre. It became more and more their theory that the States, rather than the individuals of the national body politic, had been the parties to the Constitution, so making this to be a compact like the old Articles, and the government under it a confederacy as before 1789.

But while Republicans

Another issue divided the parties, that between the strict and the more free interpretation of the Constitution-between the close constructionists and the liberal constructionists. The question dividing them was this: In matters relating to the powers of the general Government, ought any unclear utterance of the Constitution to be so explained as to enlarge those powers, or so as to confine them to the narrowest possible sphere? Each of the two tendencies in construction has in turn

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