Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers

        Being a person who’s political expertise extends not much further than what I learned years ago in my US History and Civics classes, I found this reading assignment a little more difficult than our previous assignments. The Federalist and the Anti-federalist papers were written to show two opposing sides of debate during the time that our constitution was being ratified. In these papers each group, either the Federalists or the Anti-Federalists, presents their own ideas about what it means to be a republic versus a confederacy as well as the pros and cons of either system. The Anti-Federalists were opposed to the idea of a large republic. They felt that if this style of government were to be approved citizens and states would lose many of their rights and powers. In the section we read the author makes it clear that a single large government simply would not work for America. He argues that the natural progression of government, if set up in the way proposed by the new constitution, would eventually lead to a scenario where state governments are phased out by the more powerful central government. In the Federalist papers the author works to assure citizens that in a system of checks and balances, where one branch is systematically regulated by the others, government will move along smoothly and without any one branch gaining more power over the others.

         As I read these papers I found many connections to contemporary political arguments. In many ways I see this debate still raging today. Although it is obvious that the Federalists eventually won out over the Anti-Federalists there are still some political groups that, like the Anti-Federalists, want to see more power restored to the state governments and less power given to the federal government. The one that immediately comes to my mind is the Libertarian Party. Political pundits such as Ron Paul continually advocate for more powerful state government, and far less federal regulations. I believe that many members the Libertarian party would probably agree with Brutus, and maybe even argue that some of his predictions about large centralized governments have come true.

         All of this aside, as I read the Federalist Papers I could not deny the fact that the system of centralized government our founding fathers created is certainly a thing of beauty. It is the reason our country was able to rise to such great success. There were some portions of the Federalist papers that I found unclear. Majorly when it came to his ideas for the branches working with one another. In some sections he seemed to advocate that they work independently of one another and not encroach on each other’s authority. To me this seemed odd especially when each branch is supposed to balance the other’s actions.