[AKbear]

Madison, Jay, and especially Hamilton were not true "libertarian" types. Hamilton was a strong advocate for expanded federal powers, and Madison and Jay were to a lesser extent. Madison really wanted a strong central government with protections for individual liberty, but he wasn't adamant about it. I think Jay was the most "libertarian" among the three and held them to keep the intrusions of federal government to a minimum.

The true "libertarian" types were Jefferson and other Anti-Federalists. They thought the Articles of Confederation were sufficient, and if we had to have a constitution it had better have some very, very strong protection for individual liberties. Thus they fought for the Bill of Rights which the Federalists claimed were unnecessary. They said that if the federal government adhered to the constitution, an individual's rights were protected, and a Bill of Rights would be redundant.

That is the primary reason for the Federalist Papers. The Anti-Federalists were writing letters to newspapers saying that the proposed constitution gave the federal government too much power. Madison, Jay, and Hamilton wrote the Federalist Papers to counter those arugments.

Unfortunately, the predictions of the Anti-Federalists turned out to be pretty accurate.

[Ego]

Unfortunately, the predictions of the Anti-Federalists turned out to be pretty accurate.

Pretty accurate? More like dead-on bulls-eye.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Most of the Anti-federalists were not on the front lines of the Revolutionary War. It was the shared misery and deprivation in the Continental army which formed the core experience of those who later became federalist. First hand experience with trying to maintain an army showed them that the Articles were worthless as a governmental basis.

Most of those paralyzed with hysterical fantasies about a permanent military were precisely those who did not serve in the army. For the armchair soldiers the Articles were fine. Those whose lives were on the line had a much different view.