The Complete Anti-Federalist

The Complete Anti-Federalist is a 1981 seven-volume collection of the scattered Anti-Federalist Papers compiled by Herbert Storing and his former student Murray Dry of the University of Chicago, who oversaw the completion of the project after Storing's death. Michael Lienesch treats Storing's compilation as "definitive," and many of the pamphlets and other materials included had not previously been published in a collection. The collection is noted for its sympathetic portrayal of the Anti-Federalists. The commentary underscores little-known similar positions and arguments made by the birth of the first two-party system in America. Storing points out that many "Anti-Federalists" actually considered themselves federalists in the sense that a federation is a structure over sovereign states.

Background and legacy

Storing asserts that the name "Anti-Federalists" was offensive and was used to color any opponents to a strong central government as unpatriotic, when in fact many Anti-Federalists (the hyphen denotes a different meaning) were patriots of the Revolutionary War against Britain. The Anti-Federalists, Storing reveals, felt that young men like Alexander Hamilton, who was the main author of The Federalist Papers, were going against the ideals of the Revolution by substituting a potential monarchy (a president) in place of the individual freedom assured by the Articles of Confederation. The Anti-Federalists demanded and got a promise of a Bill of Rights so that the ratification of the 1787 constitution in 1789 would not be stillborn (a political reality reluctantly recognized by the "father" of the Constitution, James Madison). These collections are their unabridged arguments against a strong central government. Storing infers that there may be more pamphlets and writings in existence, but these were the only ones after nearly two decades of trying that he was able to tease out of private collections and the US government.