Country Party (Rhode Island)

Rhode Island's political Country Party controlled the Rhode Island General Assembly from 1786 to 1790 and opposed the Federalist Party, which supported the U.S. Constitution. The Federalists were largely from the "town" of Providence, Rhode Island, while the Country Party members were from the surrounding rural areas.

The Country Party opposed the U.S. Constitution largely because of civil liberties concerns leading to support for the Bill of Rights, distrust of distant government, opposition to slavery in the Constitution, and disagreements about monetary policy, specifically Rhode Island's desire to honor state-issued paper currency as legal tender.

Rhode Island's movement for state independence lasted long after the passage of the Constitution in 1788. The state was the first of the thirteen colonies to declare independence from Great Britain, passing legislation asserting its independence prior to the United States Declaration of Independence—and it was the last of the colonies to ratify the U.S. Constitution. The Constitution replaced the Articles of Confederation, and it created a stronger national government than had existed under the Articles.

Scituate's William West and South Kingstown's Jonathan Hazard were leaders of the rural Country Party which opposed the Constitution. The party "was suspicious of the power and the cost of a government too far removed from the grass-roots level, and so it declined to dispatch delegates to the Philadelphia Convention of 1787, which drafted the United States Constitution. Then, when that document was presented to the states for ratification, Hazard's faction delayed (and nearly prevented) Rhode Island's approval."

...
Wikipedia