Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptiveCoyote
Washington was a Federalist not a Republican. He believed in a stronger centralized government as opposed to the Anti-Federalists who wanted more powers devolved back to the states. He also believed in higher taxes to raise more revenue to fund that government.
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The natural instinct for us who are removed by two hundred years, is to view the above on a more literal basis than it actually was.
The Federalist/anti-Federalist struggle was indeed a strong central vs federated states style dispute, but at all times the actual conflict was populism vs aristocracy. Young America was facing the decisions regarding exactly how much power was to be truly vested in the people. All previous democracies had been limited ones, situations where power was shared rather than monopolized, but it was only shared among the elites.
The Federalists were those who believed that the nation should be run by those with the greatest levels of education and experience, those with the most to lose should things go wrong....propertied men. The idea was to have a government where the final authority was vested in those who were most responsible, those who would act for the interests of the nation as a whole rather than those who would influenced by short term emotions and immediate gain.
The anti-Federalists were those who were willing to go much further, to trust the population at large and break up the elite monopoly on political power held by the wealthy and well born.