Ratification Of The Constitution

383 Words2 Pages
During the time of when the constitution was trying to be ratified, there was a group of people who did not want the ratifications to take place. This group was called the anti-federalists. Many anti-federalists were localists and few had interstate connections with limited access to the press. This made it hard for the anti-federalists to get their points across about why they didn’t want the ratification to occur. The first ratification conventions started in December almost immediately when the delegates returned home. The anti-federalists were the group that stood in the way of ratifying the constitution. One reason they refused to ratify was the fear of an overpowering government. The anti-federalists believed that the constitution was taking the power away from the states. The constitution laid out a plan of 3 branches of government. The 3 were the executive branch, the legislative branch, and judiciary. This was included by the anti-federalists as one of their main arguments against the ratification because of the strong central government where they preferred the power to be within the states. Another reason why the anti-federalists opposed ratification was due to representation and large area republics. Because some populations are so high in certain areas, a large amount of the representatives elected to the House, anti-federalists feared, would be only the prominent and wealthy men of the area. This meant that even more power would be given to the government with the titles the men already had before being elected. Not only did the power of the government make the anti-federalists nervous, the lack of a bill of rights kept them agreeing with the constitution. They wanted a set rights guaranteed so that the central government didn’t have all the power that the anti-federalists were afraid of. The anti-federalist’s opposition to the constitution was
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