In the coming years, for the remainder of the decade of the 1780s and into the 1790s, Hazard and Belknap continued to participate in, and watch and comment about, public political, social, cultural and religious events as they simultaneously tried to order their personal lives and activities in accord with changes in the new American republic. Both men believed that the Articles of Confederation saddled the thirteen states with too much freedom and not enough order, which they believed to be unhealthy for the individual much less a republic of millions of people.

Hazard was enthusiastic about the Constitution drawn up in Philadelphia in 1787 without realizing that a change of government might mean a change in political offi cers. Although he had hitherto been ardently attached to George Washington's reputation and character, Hazard was taken off guard, disappointed and hurt, when President Washington chose to replace him as postmaster general under the new Constitution. Once again, in 1789 in his mid-forties with a growing family, Hazard was at loose-ends, uncertain and searching. He spent several anxious years trying to manage a sufficient income, eventually involving himself in the burgeoning insurance industry. Meanwhile he edited and published the documents that he had spent so much time and energy searching for and transcribing, although the sales of his Historical Collections were lacklustre.

While public political changes caused quite a revolution in Hazard's life, the growth of the American republic brought Belknap increasing security and a growing public reputation as a historian and writer.