The Anti-federalists on our Financial Crisis

patrickdeneen.blogspot.com ^ | October 14, 2008 | Patrick Deneen

[Publius804]

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

The Anti-federalists on our Financial Crisis

by Patrick Deneen

Taking a longer view, we can find some instructive thoughts on the current financial crisis from a number of the original opponents to the Constitution. Many will recall we last heard from these so-called "Anti-federalists" nearly 220 years ago, when they expressed what were then thought to be overheated concerns about "consolidation" that would be effected gradually under the proposed Constitution. "Consolidation pervades the whole constitution" wrote Pennsylvania's opposition in the ratification debates. Over and over, its opponents saw the grant of powers that promised eventual consolidation of power to the center, and the evisceration of the place of the States and robust local diversity. "The convention appears to have proposed the partial consolidation evidently with a view to collect all powers ultimately, in the United States into one entire government," warned "The Federal Farmer." The lever by which power would ultimately be accrued was the use of powers not necessarily then necessary, but granted for future possible use as would be "necessary and proper." Wrote the Pennsylvania minority, "the legislature of the United States are vested with great and uncontroulable powers, of laying and collecting taxes, duties, imposts, and excises; of regulating trade, raising and supporting armies, organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, instituting courts and other general powers.... And if they may do it , it is pretty certain that they will; for it will be found that the power retained by the original states, small as it is, will be a clog upon the wheels of government of the United States; the latter, therefore, will be naturally inclined to remove it out of its way."

[Tublecane]

I beg to differ. The original anti-federalist opponents of the Constitution were not the only historically important anti-federalists. Anyone remember the Civil War? How about Aaron Burr, John Calhoun, and Andrew Jackson?