The article examines the features of public administration in the United States in the second half of the XIX century after the end of the Civil War. Special attention is paid to the study of the impact of the Civil War and the establishment of dualistic federalism on the long-term distribution of powers between the federal center and the states. The author comes to the conclusion about the compromise nature of the distribution of state power at the end of the XIX century, caused by the desire to centralize power and establish its vertical as a result of the victory of the North in the war, the theory of federalists on the ideological battlefield, and the struggle of the states to maintain independence in matters of local importance.