The Other Founders of the United States

"The Other Founders" by history professor Saul Cornell is a book about the Anti-Federalists, the "radical" wing of the American Revolution. The Anti-Federalists opposed the ratification of the US constitution, believing that it would grant too much power to the federal authorities. While not necessarily opposed to some sort of federation, the Anti-Federalists wanted most power to be vested in the states, or even further down, at county level. After the US constitution had been ratified, Anti-Federalists usually joined the emerging Democratic-Republican movement of Thomas Jefferson, becoming a kind of "loyal opposition" within the federal structures they had previously opposed.

Saul Cornell believes that Anti-Federalist ideas and attitudes remained an important part of the political landscape even after the US constitution had been ratified. Although Anti-Federalists were, in one sense, on the loosing side, they didn't simply collapse or go away. After all, they were right: the United States *did* become more centralized and (perhaps) less democratic after the constitution had been adopted. As several other reviewers have pointed out, much opposition to the modern federal government sounds Anti-Federalist. (Strangely, many of these dissidents claim to uphold the constitution and the Federalist Papers.)

"The Other Founders" point out that Anti-Federalism wasn't a homogenous movement. Rather, it was a coalition of several different currents, hold together mostly by their shared opposition to the centralization proposed by the Federalists. Cornell distinguishes between elite, middling and plebeian Anti-Federalists.

The "middling" (middle class) group consisted of state politicians in New York and elsewhere who had rised to prominence after the revolution, due to the democratization of public life. They resented the traditional elite groups, but were equally suspicious of "the lower sort" and their "mobocracy". Charting a moderate middle course, the middling Anti-Federalists believed that the states should have most of the power. They were equally opposed to both localism and federal centralism. I got the impression that the middling group wanted to turn their respective states into a kind of nation-states, but go no further than that. They were also generally pro-commerce, "pro-capitalist", while opposing Hamilton, who was seen as the friend of speculators and corrupt politicians.

An interesting fact pointed to by Cornell is that both the elite Anti-Federalists and the plebeian faction were strongly localist. They were opposed to centralized federal power, and felt uneasy towards power on the state level as well. The elite group, apparently some kind of traditionalist Southern landowners, believed that the old elite could uphold its values (and control) only in a small-sized, rural setting. Only at the local level was it possible for the Southern gentlemen to influence the common people, in face-to-face contact and according to strict codes of honor and deference. The elite Anti-Federalists were also suspiscious of the emerging public sphere of newspapers, with their anonymous political articles and mass readership. This new public sphere, which was state-wide, nation-wide and "democratic", threatened the privileged positions of the landed gentry. The elitists were used to policy-making by personal contact between prominent people, or by the exchange of letters for strictly private consumption among a select few. The new era of popular appeals through mass media were not for them.

The most radical Anti-Federalists, the plebeians, were also localist. In their case, because direct democracy could function only at the local level. To the plebeians, the town meeting, local juries and (of course) the local militia were instruments of such direct democracy. They also had an "anti-capitalist" view of the economy, opposing debt repayments and claiming that the ecomomy should be based on moral principles. National banking, big-time commerce and speculation were seen as equally immoral.

Another highly interesting fact pointed out by Professor Cornell is that both elite and plebeian Anti-Federalists were anti-pluralists. Their conception of democracy differed markedly from the liberal one (which was more espoused by the middling camp). To elitists and plebeians alike, the community should be homogenous, and individuals could be censored by it. When plebeians in Carlisle rioted against a Federalist celebration, they invoked the idea of such a homogenous community. The Federalists should, in their opinion, have deferred to the local Anti-Federalist majority, and cancelled their meetings. Plebeians also supported test acts and loyalty oaths, which excluded non-Protestants (and even some Protestants) from full citizenship and public office. (In Pennsylvania, these laws targeted Quakers and Mennonites but also former Tories.)

The book points out that the Anti-Federalist coalition split when the plebeians resorted to violence. The Carlisle riots and their violent aftermath, although a local success for the plebeians, alienated the middling and elite groups within the coalition, making them more prone to compromise with the Federalists. When Anti-Federalists of all sorts joined the Democratic-Republican societies (and hence found themselves in alliance with Jeffersonites), the same thing occurred in the aftermath of the Whiskey Rebellion. The plebeians supported the rebellion, even calling on the rebels to secede from the United States, while the middling group, now in alliance with Jefferson and Madison, got cold feet. The elite group, ironically, could avert a whiskey rebellion in Kentucky by sabotaging the federal persecutions of tax-evaders. In that Southern state, some of the gentry were distillers, and they naturally packed the court system to insure that nobody (not even plebeian tax-evaders) were persecuted.

"The Other Founders" isn't a book for the general public. It presupposes a high degree of foreknowledge about the American Revolution on the part of the reader. Many key terms such as "Old Whig" ,"republicanism" or "originalism" are never defined. Also, the style is tedious, boring and frequently repetitive. A large part of the book analyzes the strategy of the different factions in the public sphere (the press). In other words, the book is a typical scholarly tome!

Did I mind? Well, a more lively styled could have helped. Also, I would have appreciated more emphasis on the class conflicts and less on the newspapers. Still, I found the book interesting and informative, especially the first section on pre-ratification Anti-Federalism and the section dealing with the Whiskey Rebellion.

Recommended for serious students of the American Revolution and political science in general.