at a weak, decentralized government could do further harm to their
             economic interest. (71, Wood) This belief falls right into the arguments that the
             Beard argued that these men wanted "a strong national government to promote industry
             and trade, protect private property, and most importantly, ensure payment of the public
             debt--much of which was owed to them." (45, O'Connor)
             By the end of President Washington's first term everybody started to "take sides on the
             question: should the central government build up its power as fast as it could, or should it
             leave power in the hands of the States as long as it could?" (71, Wood)
             The issues in debate include the motives of the revolutionaries. The Federalist would lead
             us to believe that there was a great crisis and if we did not act and make a strong central
             government, we would not survive. However the Anti-Federalist did not see this great
             crisis. "The new central government seems inevitable to us only for reasons that fit our
             modern preconceptions. As long as people in the 1780s explain the movement for the
             Constitution in terms of weakness of the Confederation, we can easily understand and
             accept their explanations. But when people describe the movement in terms other than
             palpable weaknesses of central government--interms of a crisis in the society--we become
             puzzled and skeptical. A real crisis? The 1780s were, after all, a time of great release and
             expansion: . . . more Americans than ever before were off in pursuit of prosperity and
             In only a few short years the idea of how our democracy was supposed to work changed.
             "Direct Democracies, where all citizens gathered to discuss and decide upon issues proved
             unworkable in the colonies, which was replaced by a system called indirect or
             representative democracy. Ironically, this system of government, in which representatives
             of the people are chosen by ball...