Federalist AntiFederalist Essay

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Brianna Safarewitz
30 September 2014
APUSH
Federalist Vs Anti­Federalist
Throughout the history of the United States there have always been opposing political parties. One of the parties was the Federalist party. Members from this group believed in a strong and central government. The opposing party was called the Anti­Federalists and the believed that there should be a weak central government Opposing parties are essential to a functioning government because they create another step in our checks and balances system.
While both parties were very different, they both cared deeply about the future of the United
States and they wanted to make the United States as perfect as it could be.
The Federalist party believed that a strong and central government would be best for the
United States because the states were so large in size that it would be easiest to unify them under one government instead of individual state governments. Even though we had just gotten out of a war with a country that had a central government, they were not afraid of the idea and thought it would be best for the states. They eventually won, because we have a strong central government that the Federalists would be proud of. The Federalist party was made up primarily of upper class citizens. Their argument was that the United States needed a stronger government because it was, “a necessary improvement on the Articles of Confederation,” (Citation 1). While the Anti­Federalists also wanted an improvement on the Articles of Confederation, but in another way. The Anti­Federalists believed that the United States would do better if they were not

unified under a strong, central government, because they did not want another tyrannical government like the one they just fought and defeated in the War for Independence. The
Anti­Federalists also believed that the states should be united in some circumstances, but thought that each state should be it’s own government. Their reasoning was that the states were all so different in culture and environment that it would be nearly impossible to do anything in government that could be agreed on by the majority of states. Typically, you could find that the
Anti­Federalist party was made of middle to lower middle class citizens, and we can assume that they did not want a central government because they did not want to pay higher taxes. Some of the Anti­Federalists were local politicians that,
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