The most serious objection to the constitution before its ratification was the absence of a distinct bill of rights, which should recognize “the equality of all men, and their rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” and at the first session of Congress a bill was framed containing twelve articles, ten of which were afterwards ratified as amendments to the constitution. Yet state sovereignty, then imperfectly defined, was the prevailing idea in the minds of the Anti-Federalists, and they took every opportunity to oppose any extended delegation of authority from the states of the Union. They contended that the power of the state should be supreme, and charged the Federalists with monarchical tendencies. They opposed Hamilton’s national bank scheme, and Jefferson and Randolph plainly expressed the opinion that it was unconstitutional—that a bank was not authorized by the constitution, and that it would prevent the states from maintaining banks. But when the Bill of Rights had been incorporated in and attached to the constitution as amendments, Jefferson with rare political sagacity withdrew all opposition to the instrument itself, and the Anti-Federalists gladly followed his lead, for they felt that they had labored under many partisan disadvantages. The constitution was from the first too strong for successful resistance, and when opposition was confessedly abandoned the party name was changed, also at the suggestion of Jefferson, to that of Republican. The Anti-Federalists were at first disposed to call their party the Democratic-Republicans, but finally called, it simply Republican, to avoid the opposite of the extreme which they charged against the Federalists. Each party had its taunts in use, the Federalists being denounced as monarchists, the Anti-Federalists as Democrats; the one presumed to be looking forward to monarchy, the other to the rule of the mob.