The Anti-Federalists were a loosely associated group of men and women who opposed the ratification of the United States Constitution in the wake of the Constitutional Convention of 1787. Although the intensity of and reasons for their opposition varied by individual, state, and region, a common thread bound Anti-Federalists: fear that a powerful, distant, and centralized national government was a direct threat to democracy (defined as local self-government or states' rights) and individual rights and liberties. Anti-Federalists believed passionately that the U.S. Constitution with its Supremacy Clause (Article VI) and the Necessary and Proper Clause (Article I, sec. 8) would create a tyrannical central government and so they agitated vigorously against its adoption in newspapers, on the streets, and in state ratifying conventions.

To understand the Anti-Federalists as they understood themselves, it is important to know that they were ardent supporters (and many were veterans) of the American Revolution...