1787 • Sierra Leone founded by freed Africans 1790 • Lavoisier’s Table of Thirty-One Chemical Elements published After the American Revolution, the new nation struggled to draw up a plan for government. Americans wanted to make sure the government did not have too much power. Eventually they came up with a way to balance federal and state power and to divide federal power into three branches. Promising to add a bill of rights helped win approval for the Constitution.
