What was the most important issue dividing the Federalists and the Democratic Republicans?

The concept of partisan rivalries in the United Statesʻ political scene has been prevalent since the countryʻs inception. This is a result of differing ideas in terms of how social, economic, and institutional matters must be handled. During pre-revolutionary times, there were those who deemed themselves loyalists and those who deemed themselves, patriots. During John Adamsʻ term as President, it was the Federalists versus the Democratic-Republicans. The name of the latter may seem funny to us, seeing as how the modern Democratic and Republican parties could not be further apart in ideology.

The Federalists were usually wealthy merchants or well-educated people that lived along the eastern seaboard and were accustomed to the city life. On the other hand, the Democratic-Republicans frequently hailed from the Western Regions and were comprised of farmers and laborers. These same Democratic-Republicans favored a weaker central government and a stronger statal government. They believed in the strict interpretation of the constitution, and nothing outside of it. According to them, the Federal Government could not do anything the constitution did not explicitly permit. As you might have already guessed, the Federalists believed in a loose interpretation of the Constitution, and a strong Federal Government. That the states self-governance should be weak while the centralized Federal Government should be strong.

Legislation such as the ʻAlien and Seditions Actsʻ divided the representative of each party. The Sedition Act was created as a way to punish American citizens who criticized the American government during the war (against France)  with the intent to harm the government’s position. under the Sedition Act, the government charged and prosecuted several printers who spoke against the United States and the war. This violated the 1st Amendment, which the Democratic-Republicans were furious about. This was later resolved by the Kentucky & Virginia resolutions, that pushed for a strict interpretation of the Constitution when it came to powers granted to the federal government. They also claimed that states had the power to ignore and disregard federal laws if they considered them outside of the bounds of their powers as described in the Constitution.

George Washington had warned us of partisan rivalry, as he was a staunch pragmatist and independent.

“However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterward the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”