The Articles of
Confederation
PART 2 – REMEMBER, PART 1 WAS IN OUTLINE FORM.
Problems at Home and Abroad
Guiding Question: In what ways was the Confederation government weak?
Because of its weakness, the Confederation government had trouble with financial issues.
• Continentals, paper bills (Their form of $) the Continental Congress printed during the
war, did not hold their value.
• By 1781, the currency had depreciated, or fallen in value, so far that it was worth
almost nothing.
• Over printed money$.
• In 1779 it took 40 continentals to buy a single Spanish silver dollar.
• By 1781, a person needed 146 continentals to buy that Spanish coin. "Not worth a
continental” became a common saying.
• At the same time, the price of food and other goods soared.
• high prices led to food riots.
In the 1780s, the Continental Congress faced a large debt.
• During the Revolutionary War, Congress had borrowed money from American citizens
and foreign governments.
• It still owed Revolutionary soldiers pay for their military service.
• Without the power to tax, the Confederation could not easily
raise money to pay its debts.
• The Continental Congress asked the states for money, but it could not force the states
to pay.
• In fact, the states provided less than half of the money the federal government asked
them to contribute.
Plan for Import Tax
Congress faced a collapse of the country's finances.
• In 1781 it created a department of finance led by Philadelphia merchant Robert Morris.
• While serving in Congress, Morris had proposed a 5 percent tax on imported goods to help pay
the national debt.
• The plan required a change to the Articles of Confederation.
• Why? Because the Articles of Confederation previously had no power to tax.
•
•
•
•
Twelve states approved the plan, but Rhode Island opposed it.
Under the Articles, the single "no” vote was enough to block the plan.
A second effort in 1783 also failed to win approval by all the states.
The financial crisis grew worse.
Relations With Britain
Trouble with foreign governments also revealed the weaknesses of the American government.
• American merchants complained that the British were blocking Americans from the West
Indies and other British markets.
• In the Treaty of Paris of 1783, Britain had promised to withdraw from the lands east of the
Mississippi River.
• British troops, however, continued to occupy several forts in the Great Lakes region.
In 1785 Congress sent John Adams to London to discuss these problems.
• Adams found the British unwilling to talk.
• They pointed to the failure of the United States to honor its promises made in the Treaty of
Paris.
• The British claimed that Americans had agreed to pay Loyalists for the property taken from
them during the Revolutionary War.
• Congress had proposed that the states pay the Loyalists. The states simply refused, and
Congress could do nothing about it.
Relations With Spain
The United States had even greater problems with Spain.
• This European power, which controlled Florida as well as lands west of the Mississippi River,
wanted to stop American expansion into its territory.
• To do this, Spain closed the lower Mississippi River to American shipping in 1784.
• Western settlers could no longer use the Mississippi River, which they relied on to ship goods to
market.
In 1786 American diplomats reached a new trade agreement with Spain.
• Representatives from the Southern states, however, blocked the agreement because it did not
include the right to use the Mississippi River.
• The weakness of the Confederation and its inability to deal with problems worried many leaders,
including George Washington.
• Americans began to agree that the country needed a stronger government.
Forging a New Constitution
HOW DO NEW IDEAS CHANGE THE WAY PEOPLE LIVE?
The Need for Change
Guiding Question: What problems did the government face under the Articles of Confederation?
A growing number of Americans became convinced that the government under the Articles of
Confederation was too weak to deal with the country's problems.
• Among these problems were serious economic difficulties.
• After the Revolutionary War, the United States went through a depression, a period when
economic activity slows and unemployment increases.
• Wartime damage to Southern plantations
• Trade also fell off when the British closed the West Indies market to American merchants and
closed the Mississippi River.
• The little money the government did have went to pay debts to foreign countries.
• This resulted in a serious shortage of money in the United States.
Shay’s Rebellion
Economic troubles hit farmers hard.
• Unable to sell their goods, they could not pay their taxes and debts.
• This led state officials to seize farmers' lands and throw them in jail.
• This treatment angered many farmers.
• Some began to view the new government as just another form of tyranny.
• They wanted the government to issue paper money and make new policies to help those in
debt.
• Tyranny: cruel and oppressive government
Resentment boiled in Massachusetts.
• In 1786 angry farmers led by former Continental Army captain Daniel Shays who was now a poor
farmer forced courts in the western part of the state to close.
• The goal was to stop judges from legally taking away farmers' lands.
The farmers' revolt grew.
• In January 1787, Shays led a force of about 1,200 supporters toward the federal arsenal, or
weapons storehouse, in Springfield, Massachusetts.
• The farmers wanted to seize guns and ammunition.
• The state militia ordered the advancing farmers to halt and then fired over their heads.
• The farmers did not stop.
• The militia fired again, killing four farmers.
Shays and his followers fled, and the uprising was over.
• Shay's Rebellion frightened Americans. Concern grew that the government could not handle
unrest and prevent violence.
• Video Clip
Slavery in the New Republic
The Revolutionary War called attention to the clash between the American belief in liberty and
the practice of slavery.
• Between 1776 and 1786, 11 states—all except South Carolina and Georgia—outlawed or
taxed the importation of enslaved people.
• Slavery existed and was legal in every state. (Those states who now outlawed the importation
of slaves, still allowed current slaves to remain in the states.)
• In the North, however, it was not a major source of labor.
• People in that region began working to end slavery in America.
• In 1774 Quakers in Pennsylvania founded the first American antislavery society.
Six years later Pennsylvania passed a law that provided for the gradual freeing of enslaved
people.
• Between 1783 and 1804, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, and New Jersey passed laws
that gradually ended slavery there.
• Still, free African Americans faced discrimination.
• They were barred from many public places.
• Most of their children had to attend separate schools from white children.
• In response, free African Americans set up their own churches, schools, and aid groups.
Slavery continued to spread south of Pennsylvania.
• The plantation system depended on slave labor, and many white
Southerners feared their economy could not survive without it.
• That fear did not stop a number of slaveholders from freeing enslaved
people. The number of free African Americans increased in Virginia after
that state passed a law that encouraged manumission, the freeing of
individual enslaved persons.
• Around this time, American leaders were deciding that the Articles of
Confederation needed to be strengthened.
• The question of slavery would make those discussions more difficult.
Quick Recap:
1- What does it mean to depreciate?
2- What is an ordinance?
3 - What were some of the successes of the Articles of Confederation? (Think about last class
discussion.)
4 - What were the weaknesses of the Confederation government?
5- What does manumission mean?
6- What occurred during Shay’s Rebellion?