Federalists vs Anti-Federalists

This post needs to be preceded by a little history lesson.

A series of debates occurred among the young 13states in America in 1788 and 1789.  One side was called the Federalists and the other was Anti-Federalists.  The Federalists wanted a strong central government and limited power to be given to the states.  The Anti-Federalists fought for a small central government with greater power given to the states.  The Constitution had been written and ratified by the Constitutional Convention, but needed to be ratified by 9 out of the 13 states.  Because the Constitution called for a strong central government, the Federalists fought for the Constitution, and the Anti-Federalists fought against it. 

Mason's Worldview class has been studying these debates and they had their own ratification convention and debate.  The class was divided into the Federalists and Anti-Federalists and each student had to present their argument for their side.  Mallory's class came to watch and vote.  They were to vote based on which side had the most convincing arguments.  I think this is tricky since the Federalists won in real life.  The vote was 24-15 for the Federalists.  The other side had great points, though.  They talked about how a central government could end up being too powerful.  Hello.....that is actually happening now!

Mason was the last speaker on the Federalist side.  I have some clips below, but they are not great quality.  I have never used the video on this camera, so you will see that I had some issues.  At least this will give you a sample of the speech.  All of Mason's speech is not on here, but his point was that the three branches of government outlined in the Constitution would balance the power and not allow the objections made by the other side to come to pass.