A large proportion of the well-to-do colonial Americans had been active or passive Tories, and had either been ruined or politically disqualified by the Revolution.

Their successful opponents reorganized the state governments in a radical democratic spirit.

The power of the state was usually concentrated in the hands of a single assembly, to whom both the executive and the courts were subservient; and this method of organization was undoubtedly designed to give immediate and complete effect to the will of a popular majority.

The temper of the local democracies, which, for the most part, controlled the state governments, was insubordinate, factious, and extremely independent.

They disliked the idea of a centralized Federal government because a supreme power would be thereby constituted which could interfere with the freedom of local public opinion and thwart its will.