in education, and in experience. The Revolutionary War, while not
exclusively the work of the popular element in the community, had
undoubtedly increased considerably its power and influence. A large
proportion of the well-to-do colonial Americans had been active or
passive Tories, and had either been ruined or politically disqualified
by the Revolution. Their successful opponents reorganized the state
governments in a radical democratic spirit. The power of the state was
usually concentrated in the hands of a single assembly, to whom both the
executive and the courts were subservient; and this method of
organization was undoubtedly designed to give immediate and complete
effect to the will of a popular majority. The temper of the local
democracies, which, for the most part, controlled the state governments,
was insubordinate, factious, and extremely independent. They disliked
the idea of a centralized Federal government because a supreme power
would be thereby constituted which could interfere with the freedom of
local public opinion and thwart its will. No less than the Federalists,
they believed in freedom; but the kind of freedom they wanted, was
freedom from anything but local interference. The ordinary American
democrat felt that the power of _his_ personality and _his_ point of
view would be diminished by the efficient centralization of political
authority. He had no definite intention of using the democratic state
governments for anti-social or revolutionary purposes, but he was
self-willed and unruly in temper; and his savage treatment of the Tories
during and after the Revolution had given him a taste of the sweets of
confiscation. The spirit of his democracy was self-reliant,
undisciplined, suspicious of authority, equalitarian, and
individualistic.

With all their differences, however, the Federalists and their opponents
had certain common opinions and interests, and it was these common