Hamilton believed in an all-powerful federal government with the capacity to override the states' political authority. He had seen the disastrous results of an Articles of Confederation government with very limited powers. Jefferson, conversely, favored a weaker centralized government with individual states having most of the political power. He remembered suffering under an all-powerful English parliament and sought to prevent a recurrence of such a situation. Hamilton thus sought to expand and Jefferson to limit the new national government.
