THE UNITED STATES DIDN’T ALWAYS HAVE AN identity as a single nation. People thought of themselves first as citizens of their colonies, and later, their states. When frustrations with England rose to intolerable levels, the colonies came together for the first time as a confederation, but people still thought of themselves primarily as citizens of their states. It wasn’t until after the Revolution that people worked to figure out what the states’ relationships would be with one another and with the nation as a whole. The debates took years and were deeply divisive.
The matter was partly an economic question, most urgently, how to pay for the Revolutionary War. But part was also a political question: Were the states subject to the nation’s treaties? Could the states pass laws inconsistent with the nation’s?
Eventually, and even after the Constitution was ratified, these questions divided people into factions—groups with different opinions about the roles of state and federal governments. In the early years of the nation, as the abstract political principles of the Constitution were put into practice, the differences hardened and gave rise to the nation’s first political parties, Federalists and Republicans.
Federalists believed in an “energetic” central government. Alexander, a leader of the Federalist Party, believed a strong government was necessary to protect and preserve liberty. He’d seen firsthand how the war was jeopardized by the weakness of the confederation, which could not levy taxes and pay for food, salaries, and vital supplies. An energetic central government could raise revenue from the states and would also ensure that states adhered to international treaties and didn’t fight with one another, helping minimize the risk of war when the nation was still young and vulnerable.
Thomas Jefferson and James Madison organized the Republicans to oppose the Federalists. They feared an erosion of individual liberties in the face of a strong federal government, which is why Madison drafted the Bill of Rights shortly after the Constitution was ratified. They didn’t want anyone subject to the whims of a tyrannical leader or aristocracy, and these civil liberties were ratified as the first ten amendments to the Constitution on December 15, 1791.
Republicans also feared that Alexander’s banking and finance system would create an aristocracy. The Southern economy was agrarian, and Jefferson in particular viewed this as an American ideal. This economy depended on slavery, though, and that was one of the “states’ rights” many in the South fought to protect.
This question, more than any other, was never far below the surface of political debates. Not every state permitted the ownership of human beings. If the federal government outlawed the practice, it would throw the economy of the South into upheaval. The South became a Republican stronghold for this reason. The Northeast, meanwhile, had a more diversified economy and was better able to confront the hypocrisy of slavery and, therefore, became a Federalist base.