If you consider what life was like in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, you must realize how powerful was that government relative to the details of your life. The rules were not, as they are today, impersonal and bureaucratic, but they were strict, During the early republic, government was largely state and local, but the citizen was subject to it. The Central government was in deed, a distant power. It is IT which has grown exponentially. for the past century. State and local power have also grown to a degree that out forefathers would not have imagined, but they was something they were used to.
good points. I was thinking more from the bureaucratic control at all levels.