ABSTRACT
The years from 1789 to 1815 were critical in the history of the United States. In these years the federal government had to prove that the Constitution drafted in 1787 would work, and that republicanism was capable of existing over a vast area. In the past 200 years new nations have often written elaborate constitutions, but frequently they have proved unworkable in practice. In 1789 many Americans feared that federal control over a nation that stretched from Maine to Georgia, and from the eastern seaboard to the Mississippi River, would mean either disintegration or an ever increasing concentration of power at the center. There was no guarantee in 1789 that the states could be persuaded to combine at the expense of diminution of their own powers. Also, while there was a general trust that George Washington would preserve the revolutionary legacy, there were doubts about how well a lesser figure would be accepted in the office of president.
