The Anti-Federalists by Jackson Main, 1961, Edited Excerpts
1787-88:
ratification by nine states. Since the Federalists were a minority in at least
six and probably seven states, they ought surely to have been defeated. Yet
they came from behind to win. Wealth and position supported the Constitution. Lower
ranking army officers and men of lesser economic and social distinction tended
to be Antifederal; doctors were to be found on both sides.
The
Antifederalists asserted that the Constitution created a consolidated
government, and if this were so, the members of the Philadelphia Convention had
violated their instructions. The convention had acted illegally. If the
Antifederalists had dominated the Philadelphia Convention, the government of
the nation would have continued to be a confederation of sovereign states, and
the democratic principle of local self-government would have been emphasized.
The
pro-Constitution attitude of the newspapers was undoubtedly important. The
number of papers which opposed ratification or even of those which presented
both sides impartially was very few. This was natural, for the city people were
overwhelmingly Federal, and the printers were influenced by local opinion as
well as by their own convictions; moreover, it was profitable to agree with the
purchasers and the advertisers.
The
Federalist domination
of news coverage permitted them not only to obtain more space for their own
publications but to conceal or distort the facts. The objections of the
Antifederalists were sometimes twisted so as to make them appear foolish; at
other times it was denied that there was any opposition at all to the
Constitution.
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