Anti-Federalists, The Federalist Papers, and the Big Argument for Union

Abstract

In what follows, I shall make some rather smallish points about the Anti-Federalists. Toward the end, I will try to make up for my pointillism by making a rather big claim, one that moves a bit away from the topic of this panel, the Anti-Federalists, and says something about the general topic of this symposium, The Federalist Papers. To anticipate my one big argument at the end: I think that all of us in this symposium have missed perhaps the biggest argument for union in The Federalist Papers. You will not find it in the excerpts of The Federalist Papers circulated for this conference. You will not find it in The Federalist Number 10 and you will not find it in The Federalist Numbers 51 or 78. This big argument for union has some interesting implications for the theories of both the Federalists and the Anti Federalists.