Why did the Federalists favor Britain and Democratic-Republicans favor France?

[Orser67]

The polarization happened in the context of the French Revolution, which at least nominally stood for the sort of equality that Democratic-Republicans championed. The Federalists favored a hierarchical society that's actually hard to explain given how fully Jeffersonian democracy had triumphed by the 1820s, but it's worth keeping in mind that most states had property requirements for voting in the 1790s. The Federalists were reasonably accepting of the French Revolution early on, but after the execution of King Louis in 1793 they started to view revolutionary ideology as a threat to public order in the United States. At the same time, the Democratic-Republicans accused the Federalists of idolizing the British and wanting to establish a monarchy.