THE ANTIFEDERALISTS, THE 1ST CONGRESS, AND THE 1ST PARTIES

It is regularly argued that the ratification of the federal Constituti on and the formation of the Federalist and Jeffersonian Republican par ties marked Points of significant discontinuity between politics befor e the new Constitution and thereafter. In this paper, we argue that th ere was significant continuity in politics in this period. In particul ar, we argue that the antifederalist representatives in the First Cong ress helped create such continuity in both debate and voting. Issues t hat arose in the First Congress were regularly tied to constitutional questions, sometimes explicitly so, as in passage of the constitutiona l amendments and in the question of executive removal powers. At other times, notably in debate and action over Hamilton's fiscal plan, the constitutional issues formed the basis for interpreting the particular policies at hand. We argue that the antifederalists forged such links in debate, helping to establish the grounds for the opposition of Mad ison and his supporters to Hamiltonian goals. Moreover, their votes ma de up a substantial proportion of that opposition, and they served as part of the coalition that eventually formed the Jeffersonian Republic an party. We also argue that the formation of new institutions like po litical parties needs to be understood not only in terms of the intere sts and political goals of their creators, but also in terms of the id eas and principles that motivated their actions.