 1787
| October 1787
|  Oct 10, 1787: James Wilson Speech, Pennsylvania Packet (Pennsylvania)
| Federalist James Wilson _ s "State House Speech" was the first official, and most often cited, defence of the Constitution. Wilson directly confronted the objections of fellow Constitutional Convention delegates, Elbridge Gerry, George Mason, and Edmund Randolph who refused to sign the Constitution. He argued that a Bill of Rights, while necessary and salutary at the state level, was "superfluous and absurd" at the federal level of government. Antifederalists treated this speech as representative of the Federalist position.
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| Oct 16, 1787: Richard Henry Lee to Edmund Randolph (New York)
| Antifederalist Richard Henry Lee, introducer of the Declaration of Independence, presumed author of the influential Federal Farmer essays and president of the Confederation Congress, suggested fourteen necessary and proper amendments to the proposed constitution, all designed "to protect the just rights and liberty of mankind from the silent powerful and ever active conspiracy of those who govern."
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| December 1787
| Dec 18, 1787: The Dissent of the Minority of the Convention of Pennsylvania (Pennsylvania)
| A minority of the delegates attending the Pennsylvania Ratification Convention offered 14 objections to the Constitution. They argued, in dissent, that the following rights were insecure under the Constitution: the right of conscience, trial by jury, no excessive fines and bail requirements, no unreasonable searches and seizures, freedom of speech and press, bearing arms, and the right "to fowl and hunt." They also urged that adequate provision be made for the increase in the number of representatives along with their annual election, the protection of each state's jurisdiction over the militia as well as no standing armies in time of peace, a strict interpretation of the separation of powers doctrine and finally an assurance that the powers of the judiciary will be limited.
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| Dec 21, 1787: Robert Yates and John Lansing, Reasons of Dissent (New York)
| New York Antifederalists John Lansing and Robert Yates informed Governor Clinton that there were two principles that motivated their early departure from the Constitutional Convention. "First. The limited and well-defined powers under which we acted, and which could not, on any possible construction, embrace an idea of such magnitude, as to assent to a general constitution, in subversion of that of the state. "Second. A conviction of the impracticability of establishing a general government, pervading every part of the United States, and extending essential benefits to all."
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