A History of the American People

between government and people, and the degree to which the constituent elements of
government, executive, legislature, and judiciary, ought to be separate. It is the one product of
the great debate which is still widely read. How widely it was read, and understood, at the time is
debatable. It certainly served as a handbook for speakers on the federalist side before and during
the ratification conventions. In that sense it was very important.
The most popular publication on the federalist side was John Jay's Address to the People of the
State o f New York, which was reprinted many times, and another bestseller, as a pamphlet, was
the major speech made by James Wilson on November 24, 1787 to the Pennsylvania convention.
It was Wilson who put the stress on election and representation as the core of the constitution.
That, he argued, was what distinguished this new form from the ancient orders of Athens and
Rome and the curious mixture of voting and inherited right which made up the British
Constitution. The world,' he wrote,has left to America the glory and happiness of forming a
government where representation shall at once supply the basis and the cement of the
superstructure. For representation, Sir, is the true chain between the people and those to whom
they entrust the administration of the government.' After Madison, Wilson's was the most
important hand in shaping the Constitution, and after Hamilton's his was the most important
voice in getting it accepted.
The anti-federalists, such as Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, George Mason, John
Hancock, James Monroe, Elbridge Gerry, George Clinton, Willie Jones, Melancton Smith, and
Sam Adams, were formidable individually but lacked the cohesive force of the federalists. Their
objections varied and they appeared unable to agree on an alternative to what they rejected. The
Letters of Brutus, probably written by Robert Yates, Otis Warren's Observations on the New
Constitution, the anonymous Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republican and Luther
Martin's General Observation contradict each other and leave a negative impression. One
pamphleteer, signing himself A Republican Federalist,' equated the proposed Congress with the British:The revolution which separated the United States from Great Britain was not more
important to the liberties of America, than that which will result from the adoption of a new
system. The former freed us from a foreign subjugation, and there is too much reason to
apprehend that the latter will reduce us to a federal domination.' This fear of Big Government
was allied to a widespread conviction, which the anti-federalists articulated, that the new federal
congress and government would quickly fall into the hands of special interests and groups who
would oppress the people. Hamilton's notion of lawyers as a disinterested class formed by nature
to run the center did not impress. As Amos Singeltary of Massachusetts put it, `These lawyers,
and men of learning, and monied men, that talk so finely, and gloss over matters so smoothly, to
make us poor illiterate people swallow down the pills, expect to get into Congress themselves:
they expect to be the managers of this Constitution, and get all the power and the money into
their own hands, and then they will swallow up all us little folks, like the great Leviathan.'
But the alternative some anti-federalists proposed, of Small Government on the lines of the
Swiss cantons, did not go down well. After all, America had experienced small government
already, during the war and since, and most people knew it had not worked well-would not have
worked at all without Washington. The problem, during the war and since, had not been too
much government but too little. That was a very general view, in all states; and fear of Big
Government was further mitigated by a general assumption that, once the new Constitution was
in force, Washington would again be summoned to duty and would prevent its power from being
abused just as once he had made good its lack of powers. Where the anti-federalists struck home
was in stressing that the new Constitution said little or nothing about rights, especially of the