Lecture 3 - Page 3

III. Articles of Confederation

A. A Weak National Government
While the states grappled with their own constitutions, the Continental
Congress also sought to create a structure of government. The Articles of
Confederation, approved by Congress in 1777 and ratified by the states in
1781, was written at the height of the Revolution when passions were
strong against a centralized authority such as Parliament that would
overshadow state sovereignty. As a consequence, the Articles created a
loose confederation in which a national government existed mainly to foster
a common defense. There was no president or national judiciary, and the
Congress was intentionally left weak.
But from the outset, the structure of a national government under the
Articles proved contentious and ineffective. Each state, no matter its size,
was given one vote. Congress had no power to tax and could gain
revenues only through the individual state legislatures. To amend the
Articles, all 13 states would have to agree - a daunting requirement since
one renegade state could hold the rest of the country hostage to its
demands.
Yet this lack of centralized authority is exactly what many state leaders
wanted in the 1770s. They sought to prevent the potential tyranny of a
government that would interfere with the internal policies of the states.

B. The Financial Crisis

A weak Congress, however, proved dangerous to the fiscal health of the
new nation. The United States had accrued an immense financial debt
overseas to the French and the Dutch and could not afford to pay even the
interest, let alone the principle on these loans. Soldiers in Pennsylvania
and New Jersey broke into open mutiny when they didn't get paid, and a
band of soldiers marched on Congress in 1783. Despite the specter of
national bankruptcy, the states refused to provide Congress with the
necessary funds it needed to operate.
Why? Because the states were also deeply in debt to creditors and their
currencies were worthless. Creditors and merchants advocated high taxes
to reduce inflation and pay off the debts, which of course hurt individual
debtors all the more. Finally, the states had entered a recession after the
war and found that the former trade privileges they once held as a British
colony had been revoked. Yeoman farmers, poor tenants, and artisans all
petitioned the state legislatures for relief which responded with pro-debtor
legislation - to the anger of creditors.

C. Shays' Rebellion
Conditions in Massachusetts for debtors were particularly grim where
Western farmers were losing their lands to repossession and being
imprisoned. In 1786, angry farmers closed the courts by force and freed
debtors from jail. These protests soon grew into armed rebellion under a
former Continental army captain by the name of Daniel ShaysLinks to an
external site.. Shays intended to march his 2,500 men on the capital to
demand lower taxes and relief for debtors, but his army dwindled during the
winter of 1786-1787 and his remaining followers were dispersed by a state
militia numbering 4,000.
Yet leading patriots were shocked at the rebellion. With the country's
finances in disarray and Congress having little power to change the
situation, should the country expect more Shays rebellions to follow? Was
this the type of republican experiment that Americans had fought a
revolution for - "mob rule"? Washington lamented that Americans may be
incapable of governing themselves. While farmers throughout New
England and the middle-Atlantic states continued to close courthouses and
demand economic relief, politicians with a nationalist outlook sought a way
to create a stronger central government.
Shays rebellion had motivated Congress into action as it called for a
convention in Philadelphia in which delegates would discuss the broad
problems facing the union and offer amendments to the Articles of
Confederation. Nationalists such as Alexander HamiltonLinks to an
external site.of New York and James MadisonLinks to an external site. of
Virginia, however, had other plans.