National Identity Dbq

The different ideas of how the government was supposed to be set up and look separated the colonists greatly. The Federalists wanted a strong central government and the Antifederalists wanted just the opposite. With vague compromises, the framers of the Constitution aimed at settling controversies but they outlasted and later on continued to destroy the new government.

This ongoing concept of national identity was contributed to by certain groups, or factions who envisioned specific governments, yet they were the opposites of one another. This led to the formation of the Federalist and Republican parties down the road. The Federalists wanted the government to be a nation-state with centralized authority and a complex commercial economy.