The Complete Anti-Federalist

Michael Lienesch treats Storing's compilation as "definitive," and many of the pamphlets and other materials included had not previously been published in a collection.

Storing asserts that the name "AntiFederalists" was offensive and was used to color any opponents to a strong central government as unpatriotic, when in fact many Anti-Federalists (the hyphen denotes a different meaning) were patriots of the Revolutionary War against Britain.

The Anti-Federalists, Storing reveals, felt that young men like Alexander Hamilton, who was the main author of The Federalist Papers, were going against the ideals of the Revolution by substituting a potential monarchy (a president) in place of the individual freedom assured by the Articles of Confederation.

I would have preferred it shorter; but there is, I think, no way to accomplish that that does not strike at the heart of the basic conception of this enterprise from the beginning: that all of the substantial Anti-Federalists pieces should be made available in their entirety and in an accurate text.

Legal historian Paul Finkleman states that the collection provides a good reference to most of the anti-federalist materials and helps to rectify the fact that the arguments of those who opposed the Constitution have not remained as well-known.