Transcript Foundations of the Constitution

Foundations of the Constitution
In the beginning…

1750s-Great Britain was in debt and searching
for new revenue.

The colonies paid little in taxes and had just
been defended by the British during the French
and Indian War

The colonies, however, had lived under self rule
for over 100 years and were not willing to give
that up.
Revolution


The Declaration of
Independence was based on
the idea that government was
a social contract between the
people and WE have a right to
break it when OUR natural
rights are violated.
“The foundation of our Empire
was not laid in the gloomy age
of Ignorance and Suspicions,
but at an Epoch when the
rights of mankind were better
understood and more clearly
define, than at any former
period.”-George Washington
Articles of Confederation

Adopted in 1781, the Articles was the first
government of the new United States.
– The Articles of Confederation was designed
around the idea of a confederation (a loose
collection of states) where the states retained
the power and the national government had
only specific and limited powers.
– The Articles was a league of friendship and an
attempt to prevent the same government the
Americans rebelled from.
Articles of Confederation

Weakness of Articles:
1. No executive
branch
2. Central
government could not
collect taxes (and
states didn’t have to
pay them)
3. No federal
judiciary to settle
interstate disputes
4. Unanimous
consent of states to
pass amendments
5. 1 state-1 vote
6. No regulation of
interstate or foreign
commerce
Other post-Revolution issues
British refused to leave forts in the north
 Indians being supplied by British to raid
the frontier
 Barbary pirates raiding American shipping
 America shut out of British West Indies
 Huge war debt
 Conflicting state trade arrangements

Shay’s Rebellion-America’s first Civil War

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After war, American’s buying
up luxury goods on credit.
British began demanding
money back, British leaned on
importers, who leaned on
shopkeepers, who leaned on
farmers (most of whom were
veterans of the Revolution)
who had no money.
Farmers that lacked money,
were put in debtors prison,
sometimes for life.
In Massachusetts, the state
government raised taxes to
pay off war debt (but where
would money come from?)

Farmers were hardest hit, so
they banned together and
rebelled, closing courthouses
and burning records of debt.
As the rebellion grew, the
people looked to national
government, which could do
nothing because of Articles
Impact of Shay’s rebellion
Following rebellion, Washington was
quoted as saying, “What a triumph for
our enemies to find that we are
incapable of governing ourselves.”
 And, “Good God! who besides a …Briton
predicted them! were these people wiser
than others, or did they judge of us from
the corruption, and depravity of their
own hearts? The latter I am persuaded
was the case, and that notwithstanding
the boasted virtue of America, we are far
gone in every thing ignoble and bad.”
 Calls for a convention to revise the
Articles went out, and on May 25, 1787
delegates began working on the
Constitution.
 By the way, Shay fled to Vermont,
pardoned in 1788, received his promised
$20 a month pension by 1820 and died
in 1825.

Food for Thought

Washington also said of the Revolution–
“At this auspicious period, the United
States came into existence as a Nation,
and if their Citizens should not be
completely free and happy, the fault will
be entirely their own.”