To summarize this, they were afraid. During that time, we had just managed to successfully leave the British government, and the whole reason we declared independence was because of an all-powerful king who controlled our lives through massive taxation, without listening to anything we said. We had developed a fear of a strong, central government like the British, so we did as much as we could to weaken our new government, even abolishing federal taxes, which meant no federal military or funding for anything like education, health, or safety at the federal level.
