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Updated: June 15, 2025
In December, 1788, a bill for carrying into operation the federal constitution being under consideration, a proposition was made to choose United States senators; but the federalists having a majority in the Senate, and the anti-federalists a majority in the House of Assembly, no compromise between the parties could be effected, and consequently no senators were chosen.
And those who oppose this part of the federal plan, act in direct opposition to what the anti-federalists often profess, for the excellency of our constitution has been their favourite theme. The third section also provides, that the senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments. This clause seems to be peculiarly obnoxious to anti-federal sycophants.
To give Congress power to make laws for the Union, and then to say they should not have force throughout the Union, would be glaringly inconsistent:—Such an inconsistency, however, has hitherto been the evil which the whole continent have complained of, and which the new constitution is designed to remedy.—Let us reverse the proposition, and see how it will then stand.—This constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be made under their authority, shall not be the supreme law of the land—and the judges in the several states shall not be bound thereby.—This is exactly what the anti-federalists wish to be the case; this, and in this alone would they glory.—But, fellow citizens, you will discern the excellency of the aforementioned clause; you will perceive that it is calculated, wisely calculated, to support the dignity of this mighty empire, to restore publick and private credit, and national confidence.
Others, who wanted the old Articles of Confederation preserved and amended so as to give Congress a revenue and only a little more power, opposed the Constitution and wanted it altered. To please these "Anti-Federalists," as they were a large part of the people, Congress, in 1789, drew up twelve amendments to the Constitution and sent them to the states.
For I learn from those papers that State is divided into parties, that each party ascribes all the public operations of the other to vicious motives, that they do not even suspect one another of the smallest degree of honesty, that the anti-Federalists are such merely from the fear of losing power, places, or emoluments, which they have in possession or expectation; that the Federalists are a set of conspirators, who aim at establishing a tyranny over the persons and property of their countrymen and who live in splendor on the plunder of the people.
In April, 1788, Colonel Burr was nominated by the anti-federalists of the city of New-York as a candidate for the assembly. The feelings of that day may be judged of by the manner in which the ticket was headed. It was published in the newspapers and in handbills as follows:
Hamilton had further proposed a bank, but this also met with great opposition in Congress among the anti-Federalists and the partisans of Jefferson, fearful and jealous of a moneyed power.
It was a close, legal, and constitutional argument, and with the retorts of the anti-Federalists occupied two days, during which Hamilton stood most of the time, alert, resourceful, master of every point of the vast subject, to which he gave an almost embarrassing simplicity.
The Anti-Federalists maintained also that many of the charter provisions were either outgrown or unsuited to the needs of the state. But the majority of the dissenters, like the Constitutional Reform party of recent date, preferred redress for their grievances through legislation rather than through the uprooting of an ancient and cherished constitution.
A year later, when Yates was nominated for governor by the Federalists, quotation from these articles was one of the favorite modes of attacking him used by the anti-federalists. Sydney, I. Friday, June 13, 1788. For the Daily Patriotic Register.
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