In calling for a more robust central government, the Federalists weren't just concerned about protecting the homeland from attack by Britain or other foreign powers. They believed that to succeed, the United States would need to become a leader in the emerging global economy and that international leadership would require a major change in American attitudes toward the role of government in commerce and trade. From the Federalist perspective, the Europeans were way ahead of the United States in the race toward international influence. The nations of Europe enjoyed a major advantage: Their colonization of Africa, Asia, and South America had allowed them to acquire abundant natural resources to be used for war and industry. The Federalists believed that the U.S. government created by the Constitution should try to compete with Europe for global influence. And this would require numerous government agencies designed to help the nation expand its influence, both commercially and politically, during the century following the Revolution.

Meanwhile, the Jeffersonian Democrats strongly disagreed with the direction proposed by Federalists like Alexander Hamilton. The Anti-Federalist faction led by Jefferson believed that the size of the central government should be limited by the Constitution to prevent it from becoming tyrannical. Jeffersonian Democrats preferred the state militia system to the idea of a federal army, pointing to the successes that the colonial militias had achieved during and just after the Revolutionary War. They also reminded Americans how the Continental army under Washington had been obliged to seek lodging for troops, often forcing residents to provide quarters for soldiers and occasionally seizing entire estates as headquarters. The state militias, in contrast, had not forced their way into citizens’ homes. The thought of an expanded federal army that might use private property as its barracks upset many landowners. As a result, the Constitution eventually included an Amendment banning the "quartering" of soldiers in the homes of private citizens.

What exactly has allowed the Constitution to survive as the democratic world’s oldest unchanged national charter even as it created a system that assigned tremendous power to a centralized government? Perhaps the answer has more to do with the English judge Sir William Blackstone than with Alexander Hamilton. After all, the federal structure created by the Constitution invokes the common law system that dates back to Roman times but was  described more recently in the legal writings of Blackstone. Common law is essentially the idea that new legal decisions should be based on previous decisions--that these earlier rulings should serve as precedents with the power to determine the outcome of future cases. This approach to justice grants great power to an independent judiciary branch like the one created by the Constitution, but it also invests authority in a central, foundational body of writing, such as the Constitution. Essentially, it grants the Supreme Court the right to interpret the Constitution and to establish these interpretations as the law of the land. In this sense, the Supreme Court has emerged as the keeper of constitutional truth; and so far, Americans have been content with that arrangement.

How did Federalists and Anti-Federalists differ in their views about the size of government? Read each phrase below and decide if it better represents the thinking of Federalists or Anti-Federalists.