and for this reason favored the Constitution. This party was especially
strong in New England, largely because New England, being the commercial
part of the colonies, had had the lamentable weakness of the old
confederation brought home to them the more forcibly by the
disorganization and loss of commerce which the Continental Congress had
been unable to regulate.

The Anti-Federalists were those who wished the State governments to be
kept strong, and that there should be a comparatively weak central
government.

The argument used by the Federalists for the adoption of the
Constitution was, that only by correcting all those defects of the
Confederation which have been pointed out, could order and prosperity be
restored to the country. They said that the Constitution, being a series
of compromises, could not please everyone in all respects, but that it
was the best that could be obtained under the circumstances. Their
arguments appeared in a remarkable collection of eighty-five essays,
called the "Federalist," written by Alexander Hamilton in company with
John Jay and James Madison. In these were explained all the points of
the Constitution, and to this day they remain the best exposition of the
Constitution ever written.

The objections raised by the Anti-Federalists were many. In the first
place, it was of course objected that it gave to the central government
too much power; that state government and State liberty would be crushed
out. The State was then as dear to the citizen as is the National
Government to us to-day. Patriotism was then devotion to the State. The
colonists had suffered so much from control over their state governments
by an outside strong government, that they were fearful of again putting