num_pages: 336
description: The Antifederalists come alive in this state-by-state analysis of politics during the Confederation and the debates over the enlargement of Congressional powers prior to the formation of the Constitution. On the one side were small and middle-class farmers who subscribed to a libertarian tradition founded in a distrust of power, a preference for local authority, and a concept of private rights that defined liberty against government. On the other, urban centers and commercial farming areas were mercantile and planter aristocracies disposed to qualify libertarian tenets out of a fear of majority rule, a concern for property rights, and a high regard for the positive economic and political possibilities within the power of a more centralized state. Main presents a perceptive account of the deliberations of the ratifying conventions, the local circumstances that affected decisions, the alignment of delegates, and the factors that influenced some of the delegates to change their minds.
language: English
title: The Antifederalists: Critics of the Constitution, 1781-1788
titlecomplete: The Antifederalists: Critics of the Constitution, 1781-1788 (Published by the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture and the University of North Carolina Press)
characters: William Findley, George Washington, Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, George Bryan, Abraham Yates Jr., George Clinton, Edmund Randolph, Elbridge Gerry, George Mason, Samuel Adams, Timothy Bloodworth
genres: History, American History, Politics, Nonfiction, Law
ratings_count: 46
awards: awardedAt: -378662400000
name: Jamestown Prize
publisher: Omohundro Institute and UNC Press