Definition
Federalists backed ratification of the Constitution in 1787 and 1788. Their leaders included James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and George Washington, and they were strongest among merchants and creditors in the port cities, though some farmers who had lived through Shays's Rebellion, such as Jonathan Smith of Lanesborough, joined them. They argued that only a stronger union could keep order, pay its debts and protect American trade, and that separation of powers, checks and balances and the division of power with the states would keep the new government from becoming a tyranny. By calling themselves Federalists, supporters of a stronger central government claimed the name of the federal system and left their opponents with the label Anti-Federalists.
Why it matters on the AP exam
Questions ask students to compare Federalists and Anti-Federalists on national power, representation and individual rights, and to explain how the Federalists won by promising a bill of rights. A common mistake is to treat the Federalists of 1787 as the Federalist Party of the 1790s: that party formed around Hamilton's financial program and friendship with Britain, and James Madison, a leading Federalist in 1787, helped Jefferson lead the Democratic-Republicans. Their case rested on the failures of the Articles, so questions about the Constitution as a response to the Articles often draw on Federalist reasoning.
In the sources
“I have lived in a part of the country where I have known the worth of good government by the want of it.”
Connections
- Anti-Federalists: the opponents of the Constitution, strongest among backcountry farmers
- The Federalist Papers: the essays Hamilton, Madison and Jay wrote to win New York
- Ratification of the Constitution: the state-by-state vote that Federalists won
- Shays's Rebellion: the uprising that convinced many Federalists the Articles had failed
Study it in context
Topic 3.8: The Constitutional Convention and Debates over Ratification Watch this part