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To: Natural Law
We owe the First 10 Amendments to the constitution and much of our personal freedom to the Anti-Federalists who, led by Thomas Jefferson, refused ratify the Constitution without them.

Likewise we owe most of the progressivist and leftist elements of our culture to the Jeffersonian Republicans. In an effort to defeat their political enemies they established the precedent of appealing to emotionalism and romanticism. Even supporting the French Revolution long after it was clear were that leftist nonsense was leading Europe (to 1918 Moscow and 1935 Nuremberg).

A series of crises and calamities, such as the Great Depression, WWII and the Cold War pushed the Anti-Federalism even further from the dialog.

No, the leftist elements completely defeated the Federalist. After Jackson America adopted the French School of democratic politics. Oh sure, from time to time conservative whigish and Federalists intellectualism has attempted to assert itself, but the reality is, only emotionalism can win elections. The Whigs and Lincoln Republicans which followed, to one degree or another, the Federalist ideal in some areas still needed to appeal to the people by adopting populist anti-Federalist language.

The real irony is that irreligious, sanctimonious... gentleman, Mr. Jefferson, is now remembered as the champion of the common-man, who he detested but like most leftists was willing to use. His saveing grace was that he didn't in the end trust the hoi polloi; though his vision of a mammonistic elite eventually governing the country was thankfully unworkable.

Give me rational Hamiltonianism any day.

30 posted on 06/02/2007 12:46:58 PM PDT by Pelayo
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To: Pelayo; Natural Law
We owe the [f]irst 10 [a]mendments to the [C]onstitution and much of our personal freedom to the Anti-Federalists who, led by Thomas Jefferson, refused to ratify the Constitution without them.

You are confusing me there because you are putting the cart before the horse. The Constitution had already been ratified (by the sufficient number of states) and the First Congress was in session when what we know now as the first 10 amendments were proposed by that First Congress, under the leadership of Rep. James Madison. (Actually, 12 amendments were approved by Congress, but only 10 were ratified by the requisite 3/4 of the states.) The Anti-Federalists had tried to defeat ratification of the Constitution by the states earlier and failed there, but some of their concerns were addressed later by the Bill of Rights amendments.

32 posted on 06/02/2007 2:06:40 PM PDT by justiceseeker93
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