hey everybody welcome back we're going to be discussing the Federalist and Anti-Federalists specifically but really this is a way for us to discuss the balance between government power and individual rights [Music] fun fact did you know the Anti-Federalists didn't actually call themselves Anti-Federalists actually both groups call themselves Federalists and they argued over the true meaning of federalism but since the winners get to write history we call them Anti-Federalists and you can be a winner by making sure to smash that like button the people we know as Anti-Federalists oppose the US Constitution because they believe that the central government it established was way too strong and they preferred for power to be held at the state level more like it was under the Articles of Confederation so what exactly were they so afraid of actually a lot of their arguments seem to have had Merit they worry that the federal government would be too powerful and therefore restrict personal Liberties and freedom they thought the federal government would trample states rights and take over responsibilities that belong to the states let's pause here for a little context remember the individual states existed before the United States they viewed their state more like how people view the us today as their country and they wanted states to retain their sovereignty so that the people in each state would be free to make their own policy choices additionally they argued that the federal government would tax citizens too heavily and they predicted that the U.S Supreme Court which didn't exist under the Articles would overrule state courts further diminishing state power and influence and they were worried that the president was going to have a large standing army and that means that there would always be an army not just during wartime and well that can't be very good for individual rights and maintaining a limited government it turns out they brought up some reasonable points the president does preside over a peacetime Army Congress does have the power to tax and many argue that it taxes too heavily the Supreme Court does overrule State policies at times and the federal government is now involved in many policy areas that were formerly left of the states Anti-Federalists advocated for at least three specific changes to be made to the Constitution to make it more palatable but they only succeeded on one out of the three they demand the addition of a Bill of Rights to limit Federal power and protect individual liberty they also wanted more explicit limitations on governmental power worrying that parts of the Constitution were vague enough to let the federal government grab more power over time and they also wanted to eliminate the power of congress to tax as anybody with a paycheck knows Congress can definitely tax you but at least they did get the Bill of Rights the Bill of Rights refers to the first 10 amendments of the Constitution and these are guarantees of personal individual liberties and freedoms that the federal government can't take away from you we'll talk about this more in unit 3 but the Bill of Rights doesn't actually give us any freedoms rather it restricts the federal government and says that they can't take away our freedom of speech or search you unreasonably that kind of thing so why wasn't there a Bill of Rights originally some Scholars say it's as simple as the delegates of the Constitutional Convention were exhausted and they were ready to go home so they just didn't do it another reasons include an argument that it wasn't necessary since the Constitution didn't give Congress the power to take away people's rights anyway they could only do what Article 1 Section 8 said and nowhere did it say anything about restricting speech so no need for a Bill of Rights I don't love that one and the next one is even weaker some said well the states already have their own bills of Rights so there's no need to have a federal one except the point of a federal Bill of Rights is to limit the federal government and state bills of Rights wouldn't have done anything to limit the federal government the last one might sound a bit odd but Hamilton argued that having a Bill of Rights could paradoxically lead to outrights being taken away his logic was that Congress couldn't take away your free speech for example but once an amendment says Congress can't take away your free speech it kind of opens the door to Congress passing a law restricting speech by saying well hey we're not taking it away we're just making a tiny little limit this was probably the best argument of the three but either way we do end up with a Bill of Rights after some states made the addition of a Bill of Rights a condition for ratifying the Constitution one of your required documents is Brutus number one written by a prominent Anti-Federalist and it makes the case of why exactly this new federal government would be so disastrous he highlighted the benefits of having small decentralized republics where people have more local control over policies and he warned that there would be a disastrous loss of Liberty and freedom under this new central government on the other hand Federalists supported the new Constitution and a stronger central government with more power for the federal government another required document is Federalist number 10 written in defense of a stronger federal government it argues that a larger public is the best way to control factions meaning groups that could threaten to harm the nation or its people he argues that we need to delegate authority to elected representatives at the federal level and that this will protect minority rights better than States could do and that power should be dispersed between the states and the federal government all right well that's it for this one until next time this has been a la money production be sure to check out the ultimate review packet for great practice study guides and mock exams and I will see you in the next video