The Federalists and Anti-Federalists were two different groups that worked on the Articles of Confederation, and together created what is now our Constitution. This wasn’t an easy task to accomplish, there were many debates in order to create this document. To create the Constitution, 55 delegates met together at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 to discuss how to adjust the Articles of Confederation to the new, developing country. Due to the “weaknesses” that presented itself within the Articles of Confederation, many delegates were split into two groups; one was the Federalists, which consisted of prominent businessmen, the second group was the Anti-Federalists, which consisted mostly of farmers and workers. The weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation were:
1. Each state only had one vote in Congress, regardless of the size of the state
2. …show more content…
Laws required a 9/13 majority to pass in Congress
Anti-Federalists, in the ratification debate, opposed the Constitution. Believed that the Articles of Confederation made the national government too powerful, and took too much control over the individual states because they thought the Constitution would create a government the people could not control. They argued for a bill of rights, and led state conventions to pass demanding specific bill of rights as amendments. They also thought that an organization of a national government would threaten people’s liberty, and would fail to protect individual rights because the government would be too far removed from the average citizens to understand or reflect their concerns, and could be used to violate the citizens’ rights. The Anti-Federalists believed that a representative government can only work if the community is small with similar interests and beliefs, for example, people that live in a small, agrarian community is more likely to have civic virtue due to the fact that the community lives closely together, and is more willing to set aside