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Updated: June 15, 2025
Washington and John Adams belonged to this class, and Hamilton was their most active leader. The Anti-Federalists, of whom Jefferson was the chief, were for a careful guarding of the rights of the States, and a strict interpretation of the powers allotted to the General Government. They had more sympathy with the political ideas at that time fast coming into vogue in France.
Afterwards for about ten years, in the conduct of state politics, there was little friction, for in local matters the Anti-Federalists were generally conservatives." In 1785 Oliver Ellsworth had prepared a bill limiting towns of L20,000 or under to one deputy. It passed the Senate, but was defeated in the House. The Constitution of Connecticut, 1901, State Series, p. 105.
Before the elections, General Lincoln had confessed to his former companion in arms, General Washington, his apprehension lest "the Anti-Federalists would try to get into office men unfriendly to the Constitution and so break it down, or men who would change many of its provisions at an early date."
The two latter classes of patriots are well described by Franklin in his "Comparison of the Ancient Jews with the Modern Anti-Federalists," a humorous allegory, which may have suggested to the Senator from Ohio his excellent conceit of the Israelite with Egyptian principles.
On the formation of the constitution, the community settled down into two great parties, Federalists and Anti-Federalists, or Democrats; the first believing that the most imminent danger to our peace and prosperity was in disunion, and that popular jealousy, always active, would withhold the power which was essential to good order and national safety; the other party believing that the danger most to be apprehended was in too close a union, and that their most powerful opponents wished a consolidated and even a monarchial government.
Inasmuch as the anti-Federalists were unruly democrats and were suspicious of any efficient political authority, the Federalists came, justly or unjustly, to identify both anti-Federalism and democracy with political disorder and social instability.
The weakness the anti-federalists discover in insinuating that the federal government will have it in their power to establish a despotick government, must be obvious to every one; for the time for which they are elected is so short, as almost to preclude the possibility of their effecting plans for enslaving so vast an empire as the United States of America, even if they were so base as to hope for anything of the kind.
They are bellowing about, that tyranny will inevitably follow the adoption of the proposed constitution. It is, however, an old saying, that the greatest rogue is apt to cry rogue first. This we may rely upon, that if we follow perfidious counsels, as those are, I dare affirm, of the anti-federalists, every evil which that sapp brood anticipates, will befall us.
The parties of the first Congress were the Federalists and the anti-Federalists, the friends and the enemies of the Constitution. Among those who opposed the Constitution were many able and distinguished men, but Washington did not invite Sam Adams, or George Mason, or Patrick Henry, or George Clinton to enter his cabinet. On the contrary, he took only friends and supporters of the Constitution.
The opposition, composed chiefly of those who had resisted the adoption of the Constitution, were discredited at the very start by the success of the union and the new government. When Jefferson took hold of them they were disorganized and even nameless, having no better appellation than that of "Anti-Federalists."
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