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The anti-federalists were right about everything.

Considering how many were opposed to it, then changed their mind once the bill of rights were included even though it didn't fully address their misgivings even by half, and then gave speeches for it afterward, including John Hancock and Patrick Henry, it's clear a lot were pressured into supporting it.

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squashkin@wolfballs.com ⁨2⁩ ⁨years⁩ ago
I didn't get a chance to do a deep dive in to the writing yet but found this little piece that spoke to me:

.… In the first place the office of president of the United States appears to me to be clothed with such powers as are dangerous. To be the fountain of all honors in the United States—commander in chief of the army, navy, and militia; with the power of making treaties and of granting pardons; and to be vested with an authority to put a negative upon all laws, unless two thirds of both houses shall persist in enacting it, and put their names down upon calling the yeas and nays for that purpose—is in reality to be a king, as much a king as the king of Great Britain, and a king too of the worst kind: an elective king. If such powers as these are to be trusted in the hands of any man, they ought, for the sake of preserving the peace of the community, at once to be made hereditary. Much as I abhor kingly government, yet I venture to pronounce, where kings are admitted to rule they should most certainly be vested with hereditary power. The election of a king whether it be in America or Poland, will be a scene of horror and confusion; and I am perfectly serious when I declare, that, as a friend to my country, I shall despair of any happiness in the United States until this office is either reduced to a lower pitch of power, or made perpetual and hereditary

by "An Old Whig": The Powers and Dangerous Potentials of His Elected Majesty

from: https://www.infoplease.com/primary-sources/government/anti-federalist-papers/powers-and-dangerous-potentials-his-elected-majesty

Reminds me of hans hermann hoppe arguing that monarchy is preferable to democracy, and yet both hoppe and this anti-federalist were probably in favor of some even smaller government (hoppe being for "anarchy" or "anarcho-capitalism"). And that the federal state was then too powerful, as it has grown to be very powerful today.

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