Publication Date
Spring 2026
Subject Area
Section 2: America 250
Abstract
The constitutional convention of 1787 gave America some of her most energetic and exciting few months in American history. The Federalists proposed the Constitution as a replacement for existing government, opposed by Anti-Federalists on principled grounds. Thus ensued a mountain of political writing and propaganda that historians still study today. The Anti-Federalists lost the debate, and then were lost to history. Few Americans have even heard of the Anti-Federalists and even fewer scholars study their writings. But reading and evaluating Anti-Federalist writing is an important part of studying the Founding era and Constitutional debates. The Anti-Federalists, as much as their victorious counterparts, reflected and defended the values of 1780s American society, and scored some minor victories along the way – most notably, the Bill of Rights. A uniquely literary study of the Anti-Federalist writings is a rich field that can help develop a deeper understanding of the purpose of American government and the developing identity of the nation. This paper joins two important fields of study: the Anti-Federalist papers and American national identity, and offers a new and unique way to study both fields by examining one in light of the other. The research will focus on the Anti-Federalist conception of American national identity and, to a lesser degree, how that conception flowed from and fed their political philosophy.
