Friday, November 29, 2013

Gentlemen May Cry...Comparing Federalists with Anti-Federalists

November 27, 2013 by Robert Broadus


In 2012, Citizens United created a Tea-Party-friendly film called, Our Sacred Honor, which detailed the period from the signing of the Declaration of Independence to the framing of our current Constitution in 1787. While better than most, because of its emphasis on moral virtue, this film presented the views of several of today’s right-wing pundits as truth, including the flawed propaganda that the Articles of Confederation failed “to define the relationship between the ‘federal’ government and the States—[that there was] no Presidency, no Executive Branch, no Judicial Branch—a unicameral, (that is a one-house) Congress with each state represented equally, and very little power given to that central authority.” As many of us have heard throughout our lives, the Articles of Confederation were too weak a form of government, and a new Constitution was needed that would create a stronger government with more centralized power. The film does present the fact that there were opponents to the 1787 Constitution, but only mentions George Mason as being one of them. Patrick Henry was probably one of the best-known Anti-Federalists, and his cry for Virginians to come to the aid of Massachusetts in 1775 is said to have been the driving force that enabled Americans to unite and win our War for Independence. He was paraphrasing the book of Jeremiah when he said,

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