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

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