Amos Singletary, 1788These lawyers, and men of learning, and moneyed men, that talk so finely, and gloss over matters so smoothly, to make us poor illiterate people swallow down the pill, expect to get into Congress themselves...and then they will swallow up all us little folks, like the great Leviathan.
Amos Singletary, 1788
This author is most-likely an ANTI-FEDERALIST because he is criticizing the new system of government that would/could allow for the rich to be in control and would take advantage of the poor/uneducated.
Reading 2:
I am a plain man, and get my living by the plough....I have lived in a part of the country where I have known the worth of good government by the want of it. There was a black cloud [Shays' Rebellion] that rose in the east last winter, and spread over the west....It brought on a state of anarchy and that led to tyranny. I say, it brought anarchy. People that used to live peaceably, and were before good neighbors, got distracted, and took up arms against government....
Our distress was so great that we should have been glad to snatch at anything that looked like a government. Had any person that was able to protect us come and set up his standard, we should all have flocked to it, even if it had been a monarch, and that monarch might have proved a tyrant.
Jonathan Smith, Massachusetts farmer
This author is most-likely a FEDERALIST because he criticizes the Articles of Confederation – citing that the Articles were too weak/ unorganized. He believes that any form of government (that is NOT the Articles) would be better.
Reading 3:
A little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical....It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Thomas Jefferson, 1787
This author is most-likely an ANTI-FEDERALIST because he seems to support the idea of rebellion and the need or “desire” to go against the norm. Anti-Federalists were going against the new Constitution and were in opposition to the new principles, & Jefferson appears to support this and believes it is necessary for the good of the government/people.
Reading 4:
It cannot be denied with truth, that this new constitution is, in its first principles, most highly and dangerously, oligarchic.
Richard Henry Lee, 1787
This author is most-likely an ANTI-FEDERALIST because he refers to the new government as “oligarchic” – stating that a smaller, elite group will control the masses. He sees this