High School History Students and the Federalists

Greetings all - while it would be cool if all I did all day was bang out Tweets and post pics to Instagram, I do have to earn a living. And...since I do not see eye to eye with the powers that be in the Ivory Tower (and they don't see eye to eye with me...) I teach AP US History (and other stuff) privately here in Los Angeles. I answer to no one and I don't give a shit about tenure. It's good work if you can get it. Here's something I have noticed. High school kids really relate to the Early Republic Federalists. At first this struck me as odd...I mean, in general, they seem so...government. I would expect them to gravitate toward the idealism of Thomas Jefferson. But no. Centralization? Check. National Bank? Check, Internal Improvements? Check. Tariffs? Check.

I asked around about this and what I found is that perhaps the kids are latching on to the idea of stability, logic, and rationality - on clear ideas: solutions to problems, when their own futures are pretty uncertain. I'm not entirely convinced that any movement or faction can take the credit for any of these things, including the Federalists. But it just seems that this is how kids understand and make sense of the Federalists in the most general way.

This is just an observation...what do you all think? I am especially interested in hearing from other high school history teachers.

With compliments,

Keith