Crossroads for Liberty: Recovering the Anti-Federalist Values of America's First Constitution presents us with a paradox. Author William J. Watkins, Jr. recognizes, on the one hand, that we cannot get out of our 21st century difficulties with the omnipotent Administrative State by appealing to the Federalist. Alexander Hamilton, in particular, was a good government type who was willing to concentrate power in the general government as far as republican and federal principles would permit. It should come as no surprise that he accused the Antifederalists—those who opposed adoption of the Constitution outright, as well as those who wanted the inclusion of a bill of rights restraining the reach of the new government—of being incoherent and irrelevant.
On the other hand, Watkins, a research fellow at the Independent Institute, recognizes that we must still appeal to the American Founding in order to get out of our current mess of ungrounded judicial decisions and inattention to the structural restraints that were originally built into our popular government.
Thus, taking the Antifederalists seriously is an attractive option to sensible people in the 21st century.
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