Brutus Speaks

The dangers of centralizing power: Warnings from Antifederalist Brutus #constitution #10thAmendment #liberty #history #founders @michaelboldinhttps://t.co/mwyGh5WTaR

— TenthAmendmentCenter (@TenthAmendment) October 9, 2020

Brion McClanahan: Originalists and Anti-Federalists

Judicial Oligarchy

Antifederalist's warnings on the loss of self-governance and liberty through the Constitution’s general vices—consolidation and potential oligarchy—and the vices of the judiciary in particular, should appear to modern readers as prophetic and prescient. https://t.co/RtQaCKcU38

— Law & Liberty (@LawLiberty) August 5, 2020

The Antifederalists

Imaginative Conservative: The Other Founders: The Legacy of Anti-Federalism by James McClellan

State Militias (Not the National Guard)

Decentralize the Military: Why We Need Independent Militias by Ryan McMaken

The Lesser of Two Evils?

Bill Kauffman on Why We Don’t Need a President

Peter Hitchens: To the Trumpoids: It is You Who Made This a Choice Between Trump and Clinton

Straussians Doing Good Work?

Nomocracy in Politics: A Review of Zuckert and Webb’s The Anti-Federalist Writings of the Melancton Smith Circle by Peter Haworth

If Only They Had Something About Which to Worry

Peter Haworth on a Washington Times article - Statists worry about the rise of Anti-Federalism

(see Mr. Peters's comment to another FPR piece)

Bill Kauffman on the Federal Executive

Who Needs a President?

Many Anti-Federalists proposed, as an alternative to what they called the “president-general,” either a plural executive—two or more men sharing the office, a recipe for what a sage once called a wise and masterly inactivity—or they wanted no executive at all. Federal affairs would be so limited in scope that they could be performed competently and without aggrandizement by a unicameral legislature—that is, one house of Congress—as well as various administrative departments and perhaps a federal judiciary.

Items of Interest, 1 September 2011

Robb Wolf: Caring for the land: an interview with Joel Salatin (part 4 of 5)

Red Tory? by Roberta Bayer

Dr. Fleming on the Federalists and Anti-Federalists:

Is this really a black and white case? Were there no Federalists who believed in limited government? Were they all power-seeking monsters? Even John Randolph’s Federalist friend Fisher Ames? Why would Adams and Hamilton have wanted a type of government they had never experienced? It seems to me the real question on the table–apart from quite practical matters of dealing out favors–was how far to depart from the British model, which was almost universally viewed as the freest and most successful state in the world at the time. Outside of New England, the leaders of the Revolution had been proud to be English, and it was their mistaken belief that their rights as Englishmen were being threatened that led them to rebellion. George III exceeded the king’s traditional powers not by acting as a dictator or usurping authority he did not have. He got his powers honestly by bribing members of parliament. In the political struggles of the time, I generally support the anti-federalists, but that does not mean we have to pretend that the Federalists were, to a man, dirty scoundrels plotting tyranny. And, let us be candid. There are no Anti-Federalists today, not in any practical political sense. One might just as well say that in supporting, a party of law and order one is a confucianist or a fascist. The Anti-Federalists made excellent arguments, and when they elected more or less their man to the White House, they achieved something, but many (not all) turned against Jefferson, when he proved to be a practical statesman, doing his best for his country as he saw it, Constitution or no Constitution. I suppose we could begin the restoration of the old order by giving up the Louisiana Purchase and kicking out all states admitted after 1800. Perhaps we should give back to the states the right to issue their own paper money. They did such a good job of it in the past!

Anti-Federalism is an attitude, not a philosophy. As an attitude, it derives its strength from the great traditions of Aristotle, St. Thomas, and Althusius. If turned into a philosophy, however, it will become a strait-jacket.

Inkwell: Authors and Artists
Topic 417: John Robb on War, Peace, and Resilient Communities

Patrick Buchanan, Looking Back at “The Good War”

Part 3 of Why the History of Nationalism Matters in a Global Age by Lloyd Kramer

Vox Populi: All ur bikes are belong to us

Coming round the Dark Mountain Part 1: Uncivilisation by Charlotte Du Cann (EB)

Less Work, More Living by Juliet Schor
Working fewer hours could save our economy, save our sanity, and help save our planet.

Counterpunch:
GARETH PORTER, Tribunal Concealed Evidence Al-Qaeda Cell Killed Hariri
RALPH NADER, The Empire is Eating Itself
THOMAS H. NAYLOR, Robots of the World Unite!

Anti-Federalists, Federalists, and State Sovereignty by Joe Wolverton II

It should be well understood that federalist and anti-federalist alike favored limited government that acted according to the will of the people. The difference between these parties (although they would not have described themselves as partisans) was one of degree: The federalist favored a stronger, more dynamic national government while the anti-federalists desired a union where the states would be the dominant force in the federal configuration. Curiously, these differences became more marked in the years that followed the ratification of the Constitution and the resulting fissure that appeared eventually ripped the fabric of the union in two pieces: North and South.

But what did the states want? A national government or a federal government?

Confederational American Political Thought

Peter Haworth, Confederational American Political Thought in Seattle

The American Political Science Association 2011 Annual Meeting

Posted last Wednesday at First Principles Journal-- Focusing on the Anti-Federalists on "Bill of Rights Day"
Bill Kauffman Gary L. Gregg II - 12/15/10

As today is “Bill of Rights Day,” perhaps it is worthwhile to focus on the Anti-Federalists, who, through their objections and efforts, greatly influenced the events that led to the inclusion of the Bill of Rights.


With this in mind, why not draw attention to the following question: were the Anti-Federalists right to oppose the Constitution?


Gary Gregg and Bill Kauffman debated this question last year at the University of Colorado.


Regarding the signing of the Constitution, Gregg states: “There are particular times, there are particular moments in world history when great things, and good things are possible. This was one of those moments. I submit to you that the Anti-Federalists would have doomed our nation to lope along for decades if they would have rejected the Constitution. For this summer of 1787 may well have been the only real chance we had for the only kind of . . . conservative and reformed constitutionalism that we so needed.”


Kauffman responds by defending the Anti-Federalists and their contributions, noting that they “stood for decentralism, local solutions, anti-militarism, and a deep suspicion of far-off governments. And they stood on what they stood for, local attachments, local knowledge.”

video

Gary L. Gregg II and Bill Kauffman discuss whether the Anti-Federalists were right

Debating the Constitution: Were the Anti-Federalists Right?

As the past two feature articles on First Principles have focused on the Constitution of the United States, perhaps it is now worthwhile to pursue an answer to the question: were the Anti-Federalists right to oppose the Constitution?

Gary Gregg and Bill Kauffman debated this question last year at the University of Colorado.

Regarding the signing of the Constitution, Gregg states: “There are particular times, there are particular moments in world history when great things, and good things are possible. This was one of those moments. I submit to you that the Anti-Federalists would have doomed our nation to lope along for decades if they would have rejected the Constitution. For this summer of 1787 may well have been the only real chance we had for the only kind of . . . conservative and reformed constitutionalism that we so needed.”

Kauffman responds by defending the Anti-Federalists and their contributions, noting that they “stood for decentralism, local solutions, anti-militarism, and a deep suspicion of far-off governments. And they stood on what they stood for, local attachments, local knowledge.”

To see these statements fleshed out, click here.

(via the Western Confucian)

Patrick Deneen on the Anti-Federalists

Constitution as Regime

Links:
Anti-Federalist Papers
The Western Confucian, The Way and Virtue of Anti-Federalism
Google Books: The antifederalists: men of great faith and forbearance by David J. Siemers

See also the discussion of Lincoln in the comments to Crolier Than Thou. (Lincoln defender Brian Brown's Extended Republic or Centralized Nation-State? Herbert Croly, Progressivism, and the Decline of Civic Engagement.)

Google Books: The Promise of American Life

The Antifederalists Were Right by Gary Galles

Sam Francis, Nationalism, Old and New

A chapter in Paleoconservatives: New Voices of the Old Right, edited by Joseph Scotchie. Thanks to BC, I have access to the e-book. I found it to be a fitting response to The End of Paleoconservatism, even if it was written earlier, as it gives the views of one of the subjects of that article, Sam Francis. He gives his explanation why paleoconservatism didn't take hold, and it's not because it had been sapped of intellectual strength. While some may argue that paleoconservatism may have lost credibility because of the preoccupation of some with race and immigration issues, if they are correct in arguing for tradition as being the foundation of living in community, and that loss of tradition threatens the existence of community, it is up to those who wish to respond to their positions on race and immigration to first formulate a counter-argument with respect tradition. As a Catholic the tradition that I am most of all concerned with is the Christian Tradition, in all its aspects, and hence my priority is the evangelization of one's fellow citizens. (It is my personal belief that there will be no permanent cultural and political renewal unless that happens.) Nonetheless, I recognize that Tradition is not transmitted solely by the ordained ministers of the Church, but through the instruments of culture as well, and for Americans, their Western heritage is something to be preserved, not scorned.

Mr. Francis first gives his account of American history, focusing on Nationalism and republicanism:

In the course of American history, nationalism and republicanism have usually been enemies, not allies. From the days of Alexander Hamilton, nationalism has meant unification of the country under a centralized government, the supremacy of the executive over the legislative branch, the reduction of states' rights and local and sectional parochialism, governmental regulation of the economy and engineering of social institutions, and an activist foreign policy—expansionist, imperialist, or globalist—that costs money and requires at least occasional wars. Nationalism and its proponents have historically been Anglophiles, emulating the mercantilist dynastic state that flourished in Great Britain from the eighteenth century, and for all their claims of overcoming sectionalism and private interests, they have been identified with the Northeastern parts of the United States and its instutitions—New England, New York City, the Ivy League, Big Banks and Big Business, Wall Street, and Washington. The national state the nationalists defended and constructed was born with the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, reached adolescence in the victory of the North in the Civil War, and grew to a corpulent adulthood in the twentieth-century managerial state of Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson.

The principal opponents of nationalism in American history have been republicans, and it is one of the ironies of our history that the political party that claims the republican name has been the chief vehicle since the Civil War of antirepublican nationalism. The Antifederalists who opposed ratification of the Constitution were men immersed in the political theory of classical republicanism, a school of thought that originated in modern times with Machiavelli, found expression in the seventeenth-century British resistance to the powers of the monarchy, and in the eighteenth century influenced both radical Tories and radical Whigs. Deeply suspicious of centralized power of any kind and of the corruption it bred, the Antifederalists opposed ratification, demanded a Bill of Rights to limit federal power, insisted on a strict reading of the constitutional text as the basis of law, defended the states against the federal government and the Congress against the Presidency, and were generally content with the limitations on wealth and national power that a small, restricted state imposed, in preference to what they condemned as the "luxury" and "empire" that national consolidation and an interventionist foreign policy would encourage. "The anti-federalists," writes Professor Ralph Ketcham in his introduction to a popular edition of their writings:

[Looked] to the Classical idealization of the small, pastoral republic where virtuous, self-reliant citizens managed their own affairs and shunned the power and glory of empire. To them, the victory in the American Revolution meant not so much the big chance to become a wealthy world power, but rather the opportunity to achieve a genuinely republican polity, far from the greed, lust for power, and tyranny that had generally characterized human society.

Though the Antifederalists lost, their ideas, far more than those of Edmund Burke and Adam Smith, have informed the long American tradition of resistance to the leviathan state of the nationalists, appearing in the thought and on the lips of John Randolph, John C. Calhoun, the leaders of the Confederacy, the Populists of the late nineteenth century and the Southern Agrarians of the early twentieth, and in the Old Right conservatism of the era between Charles Lindbergh and Jesse Helms.

In the eighteenth century, when the debate between these two sides of the American political coin still sparkled, it was possible for the American people and their leaders to choose republicanism and to institutionalize its ideals. Perhaps it was possible to do so as late as the early twentieth century, before the managerial state began to crystallize. Today it is no longer possible. The national state has long since triumphed, and with it, wedded to it like Siamese siblings, multinational corporations, giant labor unions, universities and foundations, and all the titanic labyrinth of modern bureaucratic organizations in both the "public" and the increasingly illusory "private" sectors have won as well. To establish republicanism in anything like its classical form would involve a massive rejection and dismantlement of the main features of the twentieth century—the physical and social technologies by which modern, centralized, bureaucratically managed mass organizations operate—and while the continued existence and dominance of such features are not inevitable in any Hegelian sense, no one save a few romantic reactionaries seriously contemplates doing away with them. Not only do technology and its organized applications entice us with ''luxury"—what we today complacently call a "high standard of living"—but also they offer to those who understand how to manipulate them a degree of power unknown to the most imperious despots of the past. The elites that manage modern mass organizations and master the technical skills that allow these organizations to function cannot permit the decentralization and autonomy that characterize republican civic culture simply because their power would vanish, and these elites are lodged not only in the state but also in the dominant organizations of the economy and culture so that our incomes and our very thoughts, values, tastes, and emotions are conditioned and manipulated by them and their apologists. Short of a new Dark Age (or perhaps it would be a Golden Age), in which knowledge of scientific and organizational technology is lost, there is no prospect of reversing the trend toward mass organization and its absorption of local and decentralized institutions.

Moreover, as most students of classical republicanism understand, the distinctive principle of its theory is its concept of "virtue," a quality that consists less in moralistic purity than in personal and social independence. Owning and operating his own farm or shop, usually producing his own food and clothing, governing his own family and his own community, and defending himself with his own arms in company with his own relatives and neighbors, the citizen of the classical republic neither needed nor wanted a leviathan state to fight wars across the globe in behalf of democracy nor to pretend to protect him and his home. Nor did he need or want a job in someone else's company, or a pension plan or health benefits or paid vacations or five-hour workdays. He did not want to shop in vast shopping malls where nothing is worth buying and nothing bought will last the year. It did not occur to him to enroll himself or his children in therapy courses or in sensitivity and human-relations clinics in order to find out how to get along with his neighbors, and he sought no edification or instruction from the mass media to entertain him continuously or indoctrinate him with the current cliches and slogans of public discussion or trick him into buying even more junk for which he had no use and no desire. If the citizen succumbed to such temptations, then he had become dependent on someone or something other than himself and his extension in family and community. Men who become dependent on others cannot govern themselves, and if they cannot govern themselves, they cannot keep a republic.

Today, virtually everyone in the United States is habituated to a style of living that is wrapped up in dependency on mass organizations of one kind or another—supermarkets, hospitals, insurance companies, the bureaucratized police, local government, the mass media, the factories and office buildings where we work, the apartment complexes and suburban communities where we live, and the massive, remote, and mysterious national state that supervises almost every detail of our lives. Most Americans cannot even imagine life without such dependencies and would not want to live without them if they could imagine it. The classical republicans were right. Having become dependent on others for our livelihoods, our protection, our entertainment, and even our thoughts and tastes, we are corrupted. We neither want a republic nor could we keep it if we had one. We do not deserve to have one, and like the barbarians conquered and enslaved by the Greeks and Romans, we are suited only for servitude.

Classical republicanism, then, is defunct as a serious political alternative to the present regime, but this does not mean that Americans should either embrace the old, Hamilitonian nationalism or merely squat passively in their kennels waiting for the next whistle from their masters. Even though virtually no one today subscribes or adheres to the classical republican ideal of virtue and independence, even though most Americans are too "corrupt" (in republican terms) to support a republic, there remain a large number of Americans, perhaps a majority, whose material interests and most deeply held cultural codes are endangered by the national (and increasingly supranational) managerial regime.