“The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.” ~ James Madison

History has shown this statement to be either wishful thinking or a deliberate falsehood. Regardless of which opinion you hold, the Anti-Federalists were right. They correctly predicted the unlimited power of a consolidated government under the Constitution. Not only were the Anti-Federalists right to a degree that they could never have imagined; I seriously doubt that the so-called “Federalists” could have envisioned or would have approved of their new government becoming the monstrosity that it now is. 

It should be pointed out that before we had Democrates and Republicans there were two schools of thought that argued about how power should flow in this new government. Hamilton and Madison were “old school” and wanted TOP-DOWN government, while Patrick Henry was more “liberal” and forward thinking. He argued for a BOTTOM-UP government where sovereignty resided with the people and the states. Henry’s great concern was that a TOP-DOWN government would centralize power to the point our President would become a King and in time we would lose our liberties and the revolution would have been for not. Therefore Patrick Henry argued for a bill of rights to protect the individual from TOP DOWN government, and while he won that battle, in the end he lost the war. 

Just as an old bill that would take away our liberties was rebranded “The Patriot Act” after 9/11 so the term “Federalist” is a misnomer. Like the quote above it seem to have been a deliberate attempt to deceive people. A federal government is by definition a decentralized government. Yet, those who called themselves “Federalists” wanted a stronger central government. This was abuse of language was an intentional corruption, its purpose was to confuse people—and it has to this day. Today, only one person on the political scene represents the true federalist (BOTTOM-UP) point of view. That man is as we all know is Ron Paul, and like Patrick Henry before him, the Paul brand of “Anti-Federalist” conservationism is just to “liberal” for most people in the Republican party. They seem to think TOP-DOWN is the way things have always been and therefore it is “conservatism” to keep things they way they “should be” and not change it. Maybe the next champion of liberty should run as a democrat—if he or she did, I think the message of BOTTOM-UP would be better received.