APUSH 3.7 Notes

Topic 3.7 – The Articles of Confederation (1781-1789)

  • Second Continental Congress’ written plan for individually governed states with an intentionally weak central government

▪ State Governments (common features)

  • basic civil liberties: freedom of religion, right to a jury trial, etc.

  • most had two-house legislature where most power resided, executive and judicial branches → separation of powers to avoid tyranny (King George III loomed large in the Founders’ minds)

  • voting rights only for white males with property (typically 50 acres)

  • running for office required more property

▪Confederation’s weaknesses

  • no chief executive and no judiciary

  • states remained sovereign, so no way to enforce provisions of its treaties

  • no power to tax either the states or the people, or to enforce its laws

▪ Post-War Economic Crisis

  • suffering from war debt and inflation, the United States faced severe economic depression in the mid-1780s

  • trade was restricted with Britain and its West Indies sugar plantations, and limited credit from Dutch and French banks came with exorbitant interest rates

  • to raise revenue, many states imposed tariffs on goods from other states … and printed worthless paper money

▪ Foreign Policy Problems

  • U.S. government too weak to a) stop Britain from continuing to operate military outposts on the western frontier in places like Detroit and Otswego, N.Y. … b) force states to restore property to Loyalists and repay debts to foreigners, as Treaty of Paris required … c) stop Algerian pirates from seizing and enslaving U.S. sailors on merchant vessels no longer protected by the British flag … d) keep Spain from closing the Mississippi River to American trade

▪ Internal Conflict

  • many states disputed their boundaries with neighboring states

  • Shay’s Rebellion (1786-1787): This violent insurrection highlighted the inherent weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation and set the stage for the return of George Washington to political life as the first president of a stronger nation with a new constitution

  • Shay’s Rebellion

▪ Farmer and Revolutionary War veteran Daniel Shays led other farmers in western Massachusetts in protesting high state taxes, imprisonment for debt, and lack of paper money … clashing with eastern Massachusetts creditors.

▪ The rebellion was put down but voters turned out of office the Massachusetts governor, and debt-ridden farmers in other states closed courthouses and forced their state governments to provide economic relief.

▪ Accomplishments

  • Land Ordinance of 1785 – policy for surveying and selling (minimum price: $1 per acre) western lands → half of a township required to be sold in a single block of 23,040 acres, the rest in parcels of 640 acres each … which favored large-scale speculators with deep pockets

  • Northwest Ordinance of 1787 – created the territories in a region from the Ohio River to the Great Lakes (eventually the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin); slavery outlawed here; promoted public education by reserving land for schools; provided for orderly settlement, way for each new territory to apply to join the Confederation when population reached 60,000; implicitly invalidated Native American claims to an enormous swath of territory