The earliest tensions emerged soon after the Revolutionary War, when Jeffersonian democrats raised alarms about the "moneycrats" and their counter-revolutionary intrigues. They were referring to Alexander Hamilton and his confederates, who favored a British-style system of merchant capitalism that the Jeffersonians feared would undo the democratic and egalitarian promise of the Revolution. The fissure opened by that post-Revolutionary confrontation has never been entirely repaired.