Hamilton, Anti-Federalists: Alexander Hamilton And George Mason

Federalists versus Anti-Federalists

I was assigned to do my Twitter war on a battle between a Federalist and Anti- Federalist around the time of the ratification of the constitution. For this battle I chose to use Alexander Hamilton and George Mason. The Federalist Party was associated with a strong federal government and friendly ties to Britain. The Anti-Federalist party was a movement that was against a strong centralized government and though that states should ultimately have the majority of the power. Throughout this paper I will discuss who these people are, what they disagreed on, and the solution to their problem. Hamilton (A Federalist) was born in the West Indies and came to the colonies at the age of 17. He then graduated from

When he was a kind his father died which caused his mother to have to mange all their affairs by herself. As a young adult he managed and owned his family’s plantation which included being a slave owner. Through his adult life he worked as a planter and a Virginian politician, he also spent a small amount of time in the House of Burgesses (biography.com). Mason was asked to be in the Continental Congress but turned down the big offer because of health issues and previous commitments. Mason was not one for the spotlight and was often behind the scenes. He was a delegate for the constitutional convention in 1787 and his signature marked many of the earlier pages of the document. Later in the convention he refused to sign the document because of certain changes made to it. The main reason for him not singing the constitution was because there was no Bill of rights. Another reason his signature was missing was that the document didn’t halt the slave trade immediately (although he owned slaves himself he said it was morally wrong to trade human beings). Mason was outraged that the central government had more power than the state and the people had. His grievance with the power of the central government eventually lead to the creation of the bill of rights two years later. The bill of rights is the first ten amendments to the constitution, and is meant to keep the individual persons rights safe as well as

Hamilton signed the constitution even though he had some questionable thoughts about it, while George Mason didn’t sign it at all because he didn’t believe in some the changes made late into the convention. One of their social differences were that Hamilton was always deeply involved in everything and had a say in almost everything, he was always in the limelight. Mason was a quieter man who stayed out of loud exciting politics, it’s even said his only lengthy trip out of Virginia was the the convention in Philadelphia (biography.com). Although I see no evidence that these two men clashed in person head to head, their ideas were very different. At the convention one major topic discussed was slavery. Alexanders views on slavery were very cloudy, although he didn’t own any slaves or think it was morally correct his goal was always to do what was best for America. By this I mean if there was a choice between slaves and the well being of America, Hamilton would choose America every time. George Mason was also confusing when it comes to slavery, he owned a plantation where he owned many slaves, yet when it came time for the convention he fought for no more slave trade. The most obvious conflict these two men had was wether the