Do Now:

1. Do Now: Grab today’s Agenda – 1:11 – from your Out Box and a sheet from below the box. Read the worksheet and answer the questions that follow.

2. Case Studies

3. The Articles of Confederation • A Government • The Articles of Confederation • The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

4. A Government State Constitutions • In May 1776, the Continental Congress advised states that had not already done so to discard institutions based on ties to Britain and to establish governments grounded on their own authority. • Ten new or revised state constitutions were produced in 1776 alone. • Between 1776 and 1787 all 13 states produced at least one new constitution. • Basics: • Most of the new state constitutions retained the basic structure of a legislature with an upper and a lower house and an executive branch headed by a governor, although the distribution of power within and among the institutions shifted dramatically. • In all of the constitutions of 1776, most power was lodged in the lower house of the legislature. The upper house and the governor, suggesting the monarchical and aristocratic elements of the old regime, were reduced in influence. Governors frequently lost the veto power, appointment power, and control over the budget. • Popular involvement was usually assured through an expanded suffrage and through annual, or at most biannual, elections. • The new state constitutions were careful to expand and make more explicit the protection of individual rights and liberties traditionally enjoyed by white men, including trial by jury, free speech, and assembly, and protections against unreasonable searches and standing armies in peace. These rights and others like them were widely seen as part of the fundamental law that controlled and limited the power of government over society and citizen.

5. A Government A National Government • During the Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress created the Articles of Confederation as a format for a united government. • The Articles were written in 1777 and ratified by all 13 colonies by March 1, 1781. It was written by the Second Continental Congress. • The Articles were influenced by the Iroquois Confederacy, a league of independent Iroquois tribes that united to create a common defense against their Huron enemies. The Iroquois Confederacy was so successful that it lasted more than 200 years. • The 13 colonies needed to unite to create a common defense against Great Britain. It established a “league of friendship and perpetual union” among the states.”

6. The Articles of Confederation Article 1 • Name of the union of states is designated as “The United States of America.” Article 2 • Each state is guaranteed its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and retains every right not delegated to the United States. • Any power not given to the Confederate Congress stays with the states. Article 3 • The states agree to enter a firm “league of friendship” for • Common defense • Security of liberties • General welfare • To help each other out Article 4 • Citizens can freely move from one state to another and are to be treated fairly, in all states (except “paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives”). • Extradition too. Article 5 • Each state must send 2 to 7 delegates to the Continental Congress. • Each state gets one vote. • Delegates cannot serve more than 3 out of any 6 years.

7. The Articles of Confederation Article 6 • States cannot • Conduct foreign policy • Declare war • Accept foreign gifts or titles • Grant titles of nobility • Form smaller states • Tax or interfere with treaties • Maintain standing army or navy during peace-time • Be without a well-regulated militia with all necessary supplies Article 7 • State legislatures are responsible for raising army and naming positions below colonel. Article 8 • The United States of America will pay its bills and wars with money raised by the states, based on property. Article 9 • Powers of the central government • Determine war and peace • Exchange ambassadors • Treaties and alliances • Deciding what to do with captured land and water • Grant permission to privateers • Appoint courts to try pirates • Establish courts for all cases of capture • Set weights and measures • Serve as final court for disputes between states Article 10 • Quorum is 9 states Article 11 • Canada can be admitted as a state if it wants. Article 12 • Central government accepts war debts incurred by Congress. Article 13 • Amendments to the Articles can only be made all 13 state legislatures.

8. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Northwest Ordinance • 1787 • Encouraged development of the area that eventually became the states of Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin. • The Northwest Ordinance • established a method for new state creation • outlawed slavery in the territory • set aside land for education.

9. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Problems • The Articles of Confederation linked the 13 states together to deal with common problems, but in practice, they did little more than provide a legal basis for the limited authority that the Continental Congress was already exercising. • The national government … • Had no power to enforce legislation upon the states or individuals • Had no courts • Had no power to levy taxes (could only request from the states) • Had no power to regulate interstate commerce • Had no power to conscript an army (could only request from states)

10. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Problems (continued) • Each state had a single vote regardless of population. • A vote from nine states was required to approve bills dealing with war, treaties, coinage, finances, or the military. Often, not even nine states would show up! • Amendments to the Articles required unanimous ratification. • The limited authority the Articles granted the central government caused a variety of problems for the emerging nation. • The inability to levy taxes led to funding shortages when the states refused the central government’s request for additional funds. • The money problems led the government to sell off land to raise capital and to print devalued currency. • The central government’s inability to regulate commerce resulted in economic rivalries between the states, which were manifested in disputes over currency and protective tariffs. • The absence of executive authority also left the government powerless to deal with economic disputes and territorial conflicts, which led to civil unrest.

11. Case Studies

12. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Shays’ Rebellion • 1786, Massachusetts • The conservative administration of Massachusetts Governor James Bowdoin had increased taxes on land. This bore heavily on the small farmers of central and western Massachusetts who frequently found their farms seized for back taxes. • To make matters worse, Governor Bowdoin insisted the taxes be paid in hard currency, rather than paper. • Many of the farmers had served in the Continental Army and fought in the Revolution. However, they had not yet been paid by the Congress. • After the state legislature refused to provide relief to debt-stricken farmers, an armed mob stopped foreclosures by forcibly preventing the courts from holding sessions.

13. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Shays’ Rebellion (continued) • Under the leadership of Daniel Shays, a farmer and former army captain, a group of nearly 1,200 disgruntled farmers marched to the federal arsenal at Springfield. • By February 1787, troops of the state militia, paid with $20,000 in private money raised mostly among the merchants and tradesmen of Boston, put the rebels to flight in a series of skirmishes. • Although the uprising – known as Shays’ Rebellion – was quickly quashed, the Massachusetts legislature did approve some of the rebels’ demands for debt relief in its next session.

14. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Shays’ Rebellion (continued) • Several aspects of the Shaysite controversy remained profoundly worrisome to conservatives throughout the country even after order had been restored. • First, they knew from Aristotle and Montesquieu that domestic instability, pitting the rich against the poor, had been the classic pattern of failure in popular regimes throughout history. • Second, that this should happen in Massachusetts suggested that even the best constitution, the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780, was unable to produce peace and stability. • News of the “rebellion” spread quickly. The rebellion, along with the national government’s inability to draft an army, provides ample evidence of the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation. Federal constitutional reform seemed the only remaining possibility.

15. Conclusion • State constitutions, written immediately after the Declaration of Independence, established within states the long standing idea of the Rights of Englishmen. • The Articles of Confederation was a plan of government, written during war, to unite the colonies for a war. • However, its weaknesses were evident after the war. The Articles lacked a central government strong enough to be effective. • Shays’ Rebellion provided further evidence that there needed to be a constitutional change on a national level.