Founded as the national government is, partly on a distrust of the American democracy, it has always tended to make the democracy somewhat suspicious of the national government.

This mutual suspicion, while it has been limited in scope and diminished by the action of time, constitutes a manifest impediment to the efficient action of the American political system.

The great lesson of American political experience, as we shall see, is rather that of interdependence than of incompatibility between an efficient national organization and a group of radical democratic institutions and ideals; and the meaning of this lesson has been obscured, because the Federal organization has not been constituted in a sufficiently democratic spirit, and because, consequently, it has tended to provoke distrust on the part of good democrats.

At every stage in the history of American political ideas and practice we shall meet with the unfortunate effects of this partial antagonism.
The error of the Federalists can, however, be excused by many extenuating circumstances.

Democracy as an ideal was misunderstood in 1786, and it was possessed of little or no standing in theory or tradition.