When the revolutionary war was over, the American colonists had found themselves
free of British domination. Due to the fact that they were free from British
control, they wanted to create their own system of government where tyranny
would be practically diminished. Originally, The Articles of Confederation
connected the separate states. But this document gave the central government no
power of it’s own. Because of this, the states had many problems in
international politics since they had just found freedom and did not have the
respect of other countries. This caused a lot of thinking and it was decided
that a document needed to be created to strengthen the central government and at
the same time ensuring the safety of the states. So came to be the constitution.
The constitution brought about a division between the American people. These two
groups were the federalists, who believed that the constitution was good, and
the anti-federalists who thought that the constitution would not be able to
protect the rights of the people. These two groups had conflicting views but
together, they both wanted the same thing. The same thing was that the people
should control America by the principles of federalism. Both groups, the
federalist and anti-federalists recognized the fact that power was being abused.
They witnessed what had happened in the war and that their had been negative
effects of power and the result was very clear. British vocation had made them
very aware of the threat of corruption. Therefore, they wanted to make a
government that would ensure the duration of a just republic. The Federalists
exclaimed that the constitution was the only way they could reach this goal of a
just society. As James Wilson had said, the constitution would not give all the
power to the legislature unless it was legally written down to ensure power was
not mistreated. In the constitution, it does allow Congress to make laws that
help out the government in the area of execution of foreign powers. The views of
the anti-federalists were obviously different. They believed that the power
given to the congress was not safe since it put them too much in control. Hence
they created the Bill of Rights to "establish justice, ensure domestic
tranquillity and provide for the common defense..." The anti-federalists
feared that the actual people would not be fairly represented by their new
government since they would have the power to get rid of the individual rights
of the people. The Bill of Rights claims it is for and by the people. Especially
since America is so large, it does not ensure everyone's opinion would be heard.
Many people did not like the idea of having representatives from each state
because one man can not bring forth many different opinions. Anti-federalists
believe that liberty only is present when there are few people and they can
actually get their voice projected. In a large population, like America, the
citizens do not get Individual freedom and are deprived of their rights. Yet,
Madison a federalist stated that in a small republic, tyranny could be much more
assessable since it would be easier to dominate others. Unlike in a large
republic which is made up of many views where as it is less chance that a few
can dominate others. Even in individual states it is easy to elect officials
since people can be easily controlled when there aren't many people. In other
word, the more the people, the less chance of bribery and inducement. Another
benefit of a larger republic is that there would be a variety of people
representing them and there would be many candidates to pick from. Ensuring the
highest quality government. In a small republic, options would be very select
making it an unfair election. Besides finding officials to best represent the
people, there were many other controversial topics that faced the American
people. The topic of taxation brought about many different ideas of what should
be. The anti-federalists believed that by forming a new system would be very
challenging because that is what they know and use. The first problem they found
was that states would not want to have two state taxes. This is unfair to the
people. They also argued that a state tax was unfair since each state was
different with different needs. This could very well destroy a state
economically while other states are fine. The federalists believed that congress
had all the right to have direct taxation in ensure the safety of national
security. The claimed that the constitution was created to make sure the
sovereign power of the states was protected. The state legislature was
responsible to elect two senators and the presidential electoral process. As
stated before, both sides wanted to create a country where the people’s voice
was heard and tyranny would not happen, but the way to accomplish this was a
conflicting. The topic of power and who got what had torn America apart but soon
enough, they formed a perfect solution in which both views where united to
protect the citizens rights.