Shays's Rebellion
Causes:
• Colonies were in a financial collapse
• By printing more currency, inflation was rampant
• MA taxes were very high
• Bad year for agriculture in NEw England
• Farmers borrowed $ to survive until the next harvest
• Farmers were unable to pay back their loans, banks foreclosed.
• The Rebellion:
• Daniel Shays was a Revolutionary War veteran who had lost his farm
• Leads a group of 1,200 destitute farmers to take the armory at
Springfield
• Their demands:
• More lenient fiscal policy
• Lighten the tax burden
• More lenient tax courts
• State send 4,400 militiamen to suppress the rebellion
• Rebels scatter after the first volley, four die
• Effects of Shays's Rebellion
• Brings awareness to the fact that the government was ineffective • Serves as a wake-up call that anarchy will soon occur if something
does not happen
• Causes leaders to consider a different form of government
Constitutional Convention:
• Meeting to revise the Articles of Confederation called for Philadelphia.
• Begin meeting summer of 1787
• Washington was chosen to preside over the meetings
• Virginia Plan
• Developed by James Madison
• Discards the Articles of Confederation
• Created a bicameral legislature
• One chamber based on state population
• Second chamber was based on financial contributions from the state
• Three co-equal branches of government
• Stronger national government than state governments
• Favored states with large populations
• New Jersey plan
• Proposed by William Patterson
• Keep the Articles w/ revisions
• Unicameral legislature
• Legislature based on equal representation
• Granted extended powers to the national government (power to tax)
• Executive and court under the control of the legislature • Favored. States with smaller populations
• Great Compromise/Connecticut Compromise
• Proposed by Roger Sherman
• Bicameral legislature
• One chamber based on population (House)
• One chamber based on equal representation (Senate)
• Do away with the Articles
• Three separate and co-equal branches
• Establish a federal system of government balancing power equally
between nation and state
• Develops into the Constitution
• The Question of slavery:
• Issue 1: should slavery be prohibited?
• Decision was to keep slavery legal, but limited its expansion.
• Banned importation of slaves after 1808
• Levied a tax on imported slaves at $10 per person
• Issue 2: do slaves count when determining representation in the
House
• A slave counts as 3/5th (Three-Fifths Compromise)