Essay #3 Final Draft

Delaware: Anti-Federalists

MY fellow Delawareans, the state Delaware has become the first state to Ratify the constitution. We as the few people who are still anti-federalists want you all to realize what you're really doing for America. You all should keep in mind that now that you have chosen to ratify the constitution your rights will be minimized. The U.S. constitution will give too much power to the new national government and will threaten the popular government we have established here in Delaware. You can tie this exact situation to when the British imperial government ruled over us in the previous decades. They abused their power and their decisions led to chaos. The national government will be in the same situation if the constitution is ratified. How can you think that one government would know what is best for the entire United states?

You all know that the state of Delaware has its own Bill of Rights and it's own state government. The U.S. constitution does not even protect our fundamental rights. Freedom of speech, religious liberty, jury trials, and the other rigths that are included in our Bill of Rights. What is wrong with how we're living now? We are becoming strong, building a foundation, and prospering as a sovereign state. The United States is unorganized and isn't united as a country. We are flourishing as a state, not as a whole country, thus we should keep things the way they are.

I know the positives of the national government but when the Delaware deputies went to philidelphia to announce the ratifiaction they presented little detail on what they believed were the positives of the ratification.“We, the deputies of the people of the Delaware state, in Convention met, having taken in our serious consideration the Federal Constitution proposed and agreed upon by the deputies of the United States in a General Convention held at the city of Philadelphia, on the seventeenth day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven, have approved, assented to, ratified, and confirmed, and by these presents do, in virtue of the power and authority to us given, for and in behalf of ourselves and our constituents, fully, freely, and entirely approve of, assent to, ratify, and confirm, the said Constitution." I know there is nothing I can do now about this but we should have taken even more time to even consider ratifying this constitution. We were the first, we could have waited longer to see if ratifying was such a good idea.

We don’t want to risk giving up the power we have to a government that at this point isn't really established. Our state government would know what's better for Delaware rather than a national government would. In Delaware we get a chance to represent out state and and our government. Having a national government would minimize the word of the people. Only a set amount of people would represent decisions for the entire United States. Now that's not the word of the people. Even if in the end the Constitution is fully ratified, my opnion won't change. I'm antifederalist for life. I believe you all should be too but I know my words won't change all of your minds. I also believe that in the end, the words from the antifederalists will go down in history.