Answer:
At the beginning of the United States as a new nation, there was a lot of people who were against the original Articles of Confederation, which had been drafted as a new Constitution, because they thought they did not meet the standards necessary to ensure the survival of the new country. As such, in a second attempt, in Philadelphia, in 1787, they finally came up with the document that would be acceptable to all, and thus would be ratified as the new Constitution of the United States. This Constitution was built around 4 major pillars, all with the idea of ensuring that the country would not return to what it had been with the British. These pillars were: 1. Limited government, 2. Separation of Powers, 3. Checks and Balances and 4. Federalism. This meant that although there would be a national government, there would also be states, with power, that would balance out that of the national government, also, that there would be institutions in the national, and state governments, that would ensure no organization would have greater power over another, and thus, balance each other out.
The way that the Constitution incorporated these principles are seen in the Articles of Confederation, that would create a national government with limited powers, balanced by state governments connected, but also independent, three branches of national government: executive, legislative and judiciary, that would ensure no conglomeration of power in one set of hands, establishing a electoral college system that would give power to the people, without surpassing the limits of popular power over individual rights, among other things.
These princles are still at work today, although one of them, the limitation of government, has sometimes been surpassed in history by the needs of the nation. So today, you see a stronger, more involved national government, still under the control of checks and balances, still balanced out by state governments, yet much stronger than the one that was born at the very start of American history.