History 101 Revisited

Return of the anti-federalists
By Paul Greenberg

You may dimly remember them from your high school American history class: the anti-federalists. Th-e-y're back.

That's the name given those leaders of the American Revolution who fought for independence, but then were unwilling to establish a new government strong enough to protect it.
And so, year by year, the infant republic under the old, impotent Articles of Confederation grew weaker and weaker.

The center wasn't holding, and for good reason: There was no real central government capable of forceful action -- just an agglomeration of states that had begun to drift apart. The American experiment was ending before it had really begun. Historians would call these years of drift The Critical Period, and it was. Continue the history lesson.