itution and of national governance. Issues such as which powers would go to states and which to the federal government, how power would be divided between large and small states, and so on informed the discourse. But by far the most fractious issue, and the one that was in the background of most of the debate about government power, was that of slavery. Antifederalists, writing as Brutus, objected to the representation of states in which the "inhuman traffic of importing slaves" was well established. Yet Antifederalists objected to any idea of representation of the interests of the poor, poor slaves, when (slavery being a given) "those who are not free agents, can[not], upon any rational principle, have any thing to do in government, either by themselves or others." So on one hand the Antifederal ists were complaining that the "bad" states were trafficking in slaves, and on the other they were complaining that the interests of slaves might actually be given voice, however indirect, in the administration of the business of government in the United States.
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