Sailing to America, establishing the colonies, fighting for our independence, and wearing funny wigs. Toss in George Washington's cherry tree story, John Hancock's signature, and some fact about Benjamin Franklin, and you have a rough image of what comes to most people's minds when they think about the United States circa the late 18th century.

One thing that I don't believe a lot of people realize is that our current way of life, and our current political system, heavily stems from this time period.

Yes, we obviously began to govern ourselves and I know most people know that, but that’s not the point I’m trying to make. The point I’m trying to make is that we’ve been battling over the same issue for over 200 years.

After the United States established its independence and became recognized as its own sovereign state, the problems of self-governance emerged. Arguably the largest issue, and still one of the biggest issues today is that of federalism. Federalism deals with the distribution of power in a government between a central authority (the federal government) and its smaller constituent units (state governments, smaller localities, the people that it governs).

The argument over how much power the federal government should have first became significant when two of George Washington's cabinet members developed a division within the cabinet. Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury, was for the idea of federalism and a strong national government while Thomas Jefferson, then Secretary of State, was against the idea. I could go more into the affairs of Hamilton and Jefferson but I would just suggest listening to the soundtrack of Hamilton the musical for that.

The battle over a large versus small government would go on for hundreds of years, up until the modern day in fact. The same principles from the Hamilton-Jefferson feud can be found in modern politics, looking at the clash between Democrats and Republicans.

In a very broad and general sense, the current Democratic Party more closely represents the federalist ideals of Alexander Hamilton while the Republican Party resembles the anti-federalist politics of Thomas Jefferson.

Democrats have always been in favor of a strong national government and leaving important matters up to the federal government opposed to individual state governments. Once again, I'm painting Democrats with a very broad stroke of the brush here. Meanwhile, Republicans have always been against a strong national government in favor of leaving important matters up to individual states to decide. I’m still painting with a broad brush here.

The overarching theme here is that there has always been a divide in American politics over how big and how much power the federal government should have.

Now, with that in mind, federalism did end up “winning out” and today we have a much bigger, stronger, and involved federal government than Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr would have ever liked to see. Obviously the Federalists and Anti-Federalists had their own points of view just like modern Democrats and Republicans do, and there isn’t one right or wrong answer to the idea of the extent of power that a country’s government should have. But one question to ask is would anti-federalism even be very successful or viable in modern day America?

Hamilton and Jefferson both fought for what they thought the U.S. federal government should look like, but obviously they were very constrained in what they know based upon had read and experienced. I would say that both British and French politics had a large influence on the Founding Fathers (both positively and negatively). They probably both had other influences as well, but my point here is that their knowledge was limited as was everyone else’s at the time.

If you haven’t noticed, I lied about not going into more details about Hamilton and Jefferson. You should still listen to Hamilton though. Now, back to business.

Europeans had significantly globalized the world over the past hundred years up this point through their exploration and mercantilism. However, people weren’t connected in the way that people are today, and that is largely due to our recent technological advances. Had Facebook been around back then, I’m sure Jefferson would have liked France’s page, and I’m sure if Twitter existed that Hamilton would have started the trend #BurrSucks.

Putting aside trivial colonial Twitter wars, the Founding Fathers did not live in a time or place where everything and everyone was connected. Life in Virginia for Thomas Jefferson was much different than life in New York was for Hamilton. The economic status of all 13 of the colonies was drastically different so it makes sense that they might not have wanted to be governed the same way. After all, they did just receive their independence to be able to govern themselves in the way that they wanted to be governed. Without an immediate form of access to information about all 13 colonies, how would you expect leaders from all 13 states to have a mutual understanding of how they should be collectively governing themselves? Leaving states to govern themselves made sense because in theory they were the ones who knew best.

So, carrying on this train of thought, imagine if Alexander Hamilton had been silenced by the rhetoric of Thomas Jefferson, and imagine if James Madison had stayed an Anti-Federalist and the repercussions that would have existed in the Constitution because of his views alone. We today would surely resemble the ideals of the Anti-Federalists right?

No, probably not. If we’re going to hold off on the multiverse theory, then I’m going to have to say that states governing themselves independently without very much oversight from the federal government wouldn’t have gone very well. The reason I say that is because, well, it didn’t go very well.

It’s very hard to have conflicts over differences that you don’t know exist. If abolitionists in the northern states hadn’t known about slave practices in the southern states, would the Civil War had happened? I’m not saying that the answer is no, but the fact that this conflict did exist because of the information that was available at the time does go to show that you can only heal conflicts if you’re aware of them in the first place.

This idea can really be traced and applied to any conflict that’s ever happened: World War II, child labor, Apartheid— you name it. The more knowledge a person has, the greater chance they have of recognizing similarities and differences between themselves and other people. This recognition can lead to a sort of peace or unity or even more conflict.

As the world became more globalized, we gathered new information and used that new knowledge to educate ourselves and inform our politics. The passing of time matched with the amount of new knowledge that comes with that time can create huge differences in the world. We’ve seen this through the globalized and connected world that we live in today.

Globalization drastically changed the way that everyone lived in the world. That’s a fact. So while there are many different variables to be accounted for, I believe that the brand of anti-federalism that Thomas Jefferson endorsed would not be able to exist in the modern world solely because of globalization, and the acquisition of new knowledge and a greater understanding of the world we live in.

I believe that the more knowledge we have, and with a greater ability to place ourselves in a global and historical context, the greater chance we have of being able to work together and unite ourselves.

With all of that being said, I still understand why we argue over how much power our federal government should have. I understand that government ideally should make life easier for people and has a great potential to. I also understand that government can overreach its boundaries and turn into dictatorships, and authoritarian and totalitarian establishments. I guess what I’m ultimately trying to get at here is that we’re the United States of America for a reason, and without the bravery, courage and wisdom of our Founding Fathers we wouldn’t be the country we are today.

P.S. Even though some might argue its historical accuracy, you should really check out the musical "Hamilton." It’s probably the best hip-hop musical about a U.S. Treasury Secretary that you’ll ever listen to.