Historical Context
The Federalists were not the only ones writing essays about the Constitution. Anti-Federalists — those who opposed ratification — wrote their own responses, publishing under classical pen names like "Brutus," "Centinel," and "Federal Farmer." The most important of these is Brutus No. 1, published in the New York Journal on October 18, 1787 — just days after the Federalist Papers began appearing.
The author is believed to be Robert Yates, a New York judge who attended the Constitutional Convention but left early because he opposed the direction the delegates were taking. He knew what was in the Constitution and he was alarmed by it. Brutus No. 1 is his warning: the Necessary and Proper Clause and the Supremacy Clause together give the federal government virtually unlimited power to destroy the states and individual liberty.
Here's the remarkable thing: Brutus lost. The Constitution was ratified. But he was right about a lot of it. The federal government has expanded enormously since 1788, largely through the mechanisms Brutus identified. Reading this essay alongside Federalist 10 and 51 is one of the most important exercises in AP Government — you're watching two brilliant minds argue about what the Constitution would actually do, and history has validated both of them in different ways.
I. The Danger of Unlimited Federal Power
This government is to possess absolute and uncontroulable power, legislative, executive and judicial, with respect to every object to which it extends, for by the last clause of section 8th, article 1st, it is declared "that the Congress shall have power to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this constitution, in the government of the United States."
The Necessary & Proper Clause
Brutus identifies the Necessary and Proper Clause (Article I, Sec. 8) as the source of potentially unlimited federal power. If Congress can make "all laws necessary and proper" to execute its powers, where does the limit end? This is exactly the question McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) would later answer — in the federal government's favor.
It is true this government is limited to certain objects, or to speak more properly, some small degree of power is still left to the states, but a little attention to the powers vested in the general government, will convince every candid man, that if it is capable of being executed, all that is reserved for the individual states must very shortly be annihilated.
States' Rights Warning
Brutus argues that whatever powers appear to remain with the states will eventually be absorbed by the federal government. He's predicting the future of cooperative federalism and federal supremacy more than a century before they became dominant.
II. Why Large Republics Don't Work
History furnishes no example of a free republic, any thing like the extent of the United States. The Grecian republics were of small extent; so also was that of the Romans. Both of these, it is true, in process of time, extended their conquests over large territories of country; and the consequence was, that their governments were changed from that of free governments to those of the most tyrannical that ever existed in the world.
Historical Argument
Brutus argues from history: every large republic eventually became tyrannical. The Greek and Roman examples show that expanding territory leads to the corruption of republican government. Madison in Federalist 10 argues the opposite — large republics are safer. This is the core debate.
In a large republic, the public good is sacrificed to a thousand views; it is subordinate to exceptions, and depends on accidents. In a small one, the interest of the public is easier perceived, better understood, and more within the reach of every citizen.
Small Republic Argument
Brutus (following Montesquieu) argues small republics work better because citizens can know and influence their representatives. In a huge nation, representatives lose touch with the people and the common good gets lost in competing interests. This is the argument Madison specifically refutes in Federalist 10.
IV. The Demand for a Bill of Rights
If we may collect the sentiments of the people of America from their own most solemn declarations, they hold this truth as self evident, that all men are by nature free. No man, or body of men, on earth, has any authority, of right, to assume or exercise power over them, except such as they voluntarily vest in them. If this be true, the constitution ought to restrain and not enlarge the powers of congress beyond what they now have... If the proposed constitution should be accepted by the convention... it will be in the power of the first legislature to pass laws, which will tend to establish one religion in the United States.
The Bill of Rights Argument
Brutus argues the Constitution as written has no protection for religious freedom, free speech, or other individual rights. Without a Bill of Rights, Congress could establish a national religion or restrict speech. This argument won: the first Congress added the Bill of Rights in 1791 as the condition for ratification by several states.