In the 19th century, and for the first three decades of the 20th, the national government of the United States impinged less on its citizens than any in the Western world, except the Swiss. The national government, and its industrial power structure, set important national policy, but it collected almost no taxes, nor did it interfere or try to influence the citizen's daily life. It left almost all decisions affecting society to local option.
Because of this, important changes in America in this era were made by the states themselves, or not at all.
TR Fehrenbach, in "Lone Star: A History of Texas and the Texans," one of my current reading projects. Oh, how times have changed.
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