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