Quotes About Antifederalists

George Washington noted the hypocrisy of the many slaveholding antifederalists: "It is a little strange that the men of large property in the South should be more afraid that the Constitution will produce an aristocracy or a monarchy than the genuine, democratical people of the East.

Many Antifederalists additionally favored prohibiting Congress from disarming the people, warning that once the national government monopolized military force, it would rule supreme and the states would be destroyed

As fine a document as the Constitution is, the Antifederalists, who were not frivolous men, raised some prescient criticisms. Patrick Henry was concerned that the "general welfare" clause would someday be interpreted to authorize practically any federal power that might be imagined.