Federalists

The concerns of the Anti-Federalist were as follows the first was that a large republic cannot attract the voluntary obedience of the people, second was the proper system of representation, and the third was the need for republican simplicity and public spiritedness.

The first concern of the Anti-Federalists was that a large republic can not attract the voluntary obedience of the people and is therefore driven to execute its resolutions by military force. (1) The Anti- Federalists believed that the laws of the majority would govern over the law of the few and alienate the rights of the minority, more and more people would follow the laws due to the law enforcement that was put into place by the national government.

The second concern was the proper system of representation. The following line explains exactly what they felt. What the Anti-Federalist Were for on the bottom of page 43.   Anti-Federalists complained that in a large republic they wouldn’t be able to choose men like themselves and the representative body will inevitably be composed of the natural aristocracy. There concern was valid and they didn’t want to go back to the way it was before the revolution where the people didn’t have a voice, but this concern in particular would be answered by Hamilton in the Federalists Papers.

The final concern was the diversity of the extended commercial republic. Most of the Anti-Federalists thought along the lines of Brutus that “in a republic, the manners, sentiments, and interests of the people should be similar. (2) The Anti-Federalists were afraid that a commercial republic without the same commercial views would have no loyalty to their neighbor or their state, which would eventually lead to no loyalty in their country.

  To these concerns the Federalists replied and in particular one Federalists Alexander Hamilton. In Hamilton’s view a faction was a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and...