Another anonymous essay series appeared in the New York press during November 1787 (can you tell this whole anonymous letter thing was popular back in the day?). This time, we got the Anti-Federalist series "Letters from the Federal Farmer."

As opposed to Henry's brash stand against the documents, our truly anonymous author takes a more soft approach in his dialogue with the Federalist Papers, which were running along the same time as theirs.

He asks: first, why does the United States need a new government to begin with? They'd made it to peacetime, and as long as they kept a cool head there wasn't any disasters on the horizon. The state legislatures were doing fine, our author says, except for the tiny problem of regulating the economy.

Just a bump in the road.

Basically, he subtly accuses Madison and the rest of the Federalists for making up stories of a United States thrown into chaos and instability without the Constitutional government. The Federal Farmer asserts that the Articles of Confederation only needed a retooling, not a complete overhaul, and it's only the passions of impatient, ambitious men that are threatening to rock the boat in America, not any kind of inherent instability.