Today, people who claim to be “federalists” are usually right-wingers whose primary interest is in promoting states’ rights against perceived encroachments by Washington. Is that consistent with the experience in 1787 and 1788?
Absolutely not. The whole point of the Constitutional Convention was to enhance the role of the central government relative to the states. There were plenty of disagreements on how to do that–primarily between representatives of large and small states–but the protection of states’ rights wasn’t the objective of the Framers. If that’s what you wanted, you were at home in 1787, not in Philadelphia, and you subsequently campaigned against the ratification of the Constitution, not for it.
In other words, most of today’s “federalists” would actually have been anti-federalists in the 18th century, and would have tried to keep the Articles of Confederation in place. What would America look like today if they had succeeded? I will discuss that tomorrow.