These two terms describe a political group that places its own interests over the good of the nation. Although two political parties (the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans) had already been formed, and Washington himself was aligned with the Federalists, he was always careful to represent himself as a unifying figure. Because Washington feared that his departure would intensify partisan conflict, he used his last public statement to warn against “the spirit of party” as one of the most significant threats to The Preservation of Liberty (Paragraph 19).

The Constitution of the United States was ratified in 1787 and came into effect two years later, replacing the Articles of Confederation. Because the Articles had granted nearly all power to the individual states, those states were required to work together to achieve any common purpose, making it nearly impossible to regulate trade, collect taxes, or conduct foreign policy; a convention met in 1787 in Philadelphia to draft a new Constitution. Many delegates worried that an overly powerful central government would be no less oppressive than the British monarchy, and so the key question became how to make a government strong enough to perform essential functions and yet not so strong as to trample individual rights.