The Federalists, conservative in their views, held the new democratic doctrines in abhorrence, and used the terrible excesses of the French Revolution with telling force against their Republican adversaries.

The need of a strong government was held up as the only alternative to anarchy.

In the struggle which now united Europe against the French republic, the sympathies of the Federalists were with England.

Hence they were accused of a desire to establish a monarchy in the United States, and were ignominiously called the British party.
Shays's Rebellion in Massachusetts and the Whiskey Insurrection in Pennsylvania gave point to their arguments.
On the other side was the large and powerful party which, throughout the war in the Continental Congress, under the confederation in the national convention which framed and in the state conventions which ratified the Constitution, had opposed the tendency to centralization, but had been defeated by the yearning of the body of the plain people for a government strong enough at least to secure them peace at home and protection abroad.

This natural craving being satisfied, the old aversion to class distinctions returned.