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84 Nw. U. L. Rev. 1 (1989-1990)
Anti-Federalist/Federalist Dialogue and its Implications for Constitutional Understanding

handle is hein.journals/illlr84 and id is 17 raw text is: Copyright 1990 by Daniel Walker Howe Printed in U.S.A. Northwestern University Law Review Vol. 84, No. I ANTI-FEDERALIST/FEDERALIST DIALOGUE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR CONSTITUTIONAL UNDERSTANDING Daniel Walker Howe* The Anti-Federalists, like the Loyalists before them and the Confed- erates after them, are recorded as big losers in American history. The Constitution that the Anti-Federalists opposed is today accepted, obeyed, and unreflectively revered by most Americans. To the extent that losing movements retain interest, it is in large part out of a fascination with the counterfactual. What if they had somehow prevailed? In recent years, the Anti-Federalists have become the subject of re- newed interest by scholars critical of American political life. Writing from the perspectives of several disciplines, commentators have found the Anti-Federalists a rich source of alternative ideas about what Ameri- can politics, law, and society might have been like, had the Constitution as we know it not been adopted.' The essays in this Symposium speak to that renewed interest. Going beyond counterfactual speculation, they also demonstrate the enduring contributions of the Anti-Federalists and their modes of thinking to American political culture and institutions. Although this issue of the Northwestern University Law Review was conceived to deal with the Anti-Federalists, most of the essays also dis- cuss the Federalists-indeed, one of them is entirely devoted to a leading advocate of the Constitution, James Wilson. This dual focus enables the reader to make comparative judgments about the two adversarial groups. All of the articles deal with the expressed thought of the parties, not with their social composition or economic characteristics, or a narrative of their deeds. What we have, then, is an examination of the dialogue be- tween Anti-Federalists and Federalists, together with an assessment of how that dialogue has been regarded over the years and what it can still tell us. Saul Cornell, in his historiographical account of the changing histor- ical fortunes of the Anti-Federalists, highlights the diversity among au- * Professor of History, University of California, Los Angeles and Harmsworth Visiting Profes- sor of American History, Oxford University. 1 Among this diverse group are Herbert Storing, Gary McDowell, Frank Michelman, Cass Sunstein, Jennifer Nedesky, and Joyce Appleby. Their writings and those of others are cited exten- sively in the articles that follow.

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