A NEW NATION

There are two parts to this story:The United States had two new forms of govt.

The first is the Articles of Confederation (AOC) and it failed!

So we made a second one - The Constitution - and it succeeds.

The Articles of Confederation (AOC)

Our first attempt at setting up a govt.

We needed a powerful plan to unify and this is not it!

The AOC has been called, “ a rope of sand lurching from mere incompetence to

complete dissolution.” Joseph Ellis

What was life like in those days?

• Most Americans regarded the Confederation Congress as just some distant organization that didn’t mean much to their immediate lives

• It was their local and state gov’ts that was the meaningful source of authority. Local and state gov’ts affected them much more.

• Most average citizens did not see or nor care about the inadequacies of the AOC.

• It was men of a more nationalistic vision who would create the world’s greatest document for rule by the people.

What was the structure of the AOC?

Remember, we had just gotten rid of a tyrant king; a strong form of govt....

Weakness Problem

The AOC does accomplish one thing

The Northwest Ordinance of 1787The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 set up rules on how new territories could become states:

once population hit 60,000 then area could apply to be a state with the same status as the original 13 colonies

Then things occur which only point out the weaknesses and

problems....

The Spanish shut off the Mississippi River to American shipping. They did own it after all....

It got kind of complicated:John Jay proposed giving up the trading rights to the Mississippi River (for 25 years!) in exchange for a lucrative trade contract with Spain!

• of course the northern states liked that trading contract• of course the southern and western states hated it because they needed to use the Mississippi R. (it was the main highway of shipping!)

Those western lands were everything! and men of a true national (not sectional) vision could see this.... something had to change

ONE

TWOShay’s Rebellion 1787•10 days that changed the course of American history• Our 1st civil war!

• no, Bacon’s Rebellion in VA in 1676 (about 100 yrs earlier) doesn’t count b/c we weren’t a nation at that time; we were colonies

TWO

Shay’s Rebellion 1787

• an armed rebellion/uprising led by Daniel Shay

• in western territories of Pennsylvania

• it was poor farmers protesting heavy taxes and new trade restrictions.

• They protested the high taxes.

It is important b/c there was a lack of clear, unified gov’t response. It showed how badly we needed a stronger national govt than the weak AOC

(it was a protest)

(many veterans of the American Revolution)

Daniel Shay had a sword hilt of gold given to him by the French hero of the American Revolution - Marquis de Lafayette

Their farms were being foreclosed. The creditors demanded cash and these farmers were land rich but cash poor. It was small towns with local courts filing bankruptcy actions and auctioning off neighbor’s farms.

It is with the deepest and most heartfelt concern, I perceive by some late paragraphs extracted from the Boston papers, that the Insurgents of Massachusetts, far from being satisfied with the redress offered by their general Court, are still acting in open violation of law and government, and have obliged the chief Magistrate in a decided tone to call upon the Militia of the State to support the Constitution.

What, gracious God, is man! that there should be such inconsistency and perfidiousness in his conduct?

It is but the other day, that we were shedding our blood to obtain the Constitutions under which we now live; Constitutions of our own choice and making; and now we are unsheathing the sword to overturn them.

The thing is so unaccountable, that I hardly know how to realize it, or to persuade myself that I am not under the illusion of a dream.

Shay’s Rebellion

treachery

remedies

“Without some alteration in our political creed, the superstructure we have been seven years raising at the expense of much blood and treasure must fall. We are fast verging to anarchy and confusion.”

G. Washington to James Madison 5 November 1786

Desire for a strong govt

Shay’s Rebellion

Weaknesses of the AOC

?

This is the world the men face as they

design our second

attempt at a form of govt - the Constitutio

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