Chapter in Perspective

American rebels had won their independence from Great Britain. In many ways the war heightened existing divisions within American society. Added to older tensions over racial, ethnic, sectional, and religious diversity were a new set of difficulties arising from independent nationhood and the challenge of crafting a workable republican government. At the core of the crisis was the challenge to balance state against central and (within those) legislative against executive power. The first instinct, a natural consequence of their rebellion against King George, was to vest power in the state legislatures. But that initial strategy proved unworkable.