The Post Revolution Crisis
The Post War Crisis
- US faced serious problems post-war
- huge state and national debts
- economic depression
- too much territory to control
- enemies/rivals on all sides
- articles of confederation government was too weak to solve problems
- one vote per state
- no executive or judiciary
- no power to tax
- states kept full sovereignty
- big questions of the Revolution unresolved:
- role and limits of central government
- tax collection
- western expansion
- fate of slavery
Paying for the Revolution
- state and national governments owed huge sums to private elite creditors
- congress asked states to help pay
- some refused
- some (especially Massachussetts) raised taxes
- hit poor/middling farmers the hardest (some owed 1/3 of income in state taxes)
- foreclosures and property loss
- tax and foreclosed property both went to elite creditors