Creating a New Government

Articles of Confederation

• Weak central government• States rights• Lacked the ability to– Tax– Regulate commerce

• No common currency• They were able to raise an army, sign treaties

and declare war

Shays’ Rebellion

• A mob of angry backcountry farmers in Massachusetts

• Farm/Mortgage foreclosures• Armed Shaysites kept courthouses closed to

stall foreclosures until an army was sent in to stop them

• Ended in bloodshed• Conservatives feared “mobocracy”

Constitutional Convention

• 1787• “for the sole and express purpose of revising”

the Articles of Confederation (p186)• R.I. did not send a representative• Philadelphia

Chairman of the Convention

• George Washington

Father of the Constitution

• James Madison

Virginia Plan

• “large-state plan”• Bicameral Congress– Both houses- representation based upon

population– Advantage to?

New Jersey Plan

• “small-state plan”• Unicameral Congress– Equal representation for all states, regardless of

size or population

Great Compromise

• Bicameral Congress– House of Representatives- representation based

upon population * appeased larger states– Senate- equal representation (2 per) *appeased

smaller states

Slavery Issue

Three-Fifths Compromise

Slaves count as 3/5 of a “person” for both representation and taxation

Checks and Balances

• Each branch of government will check and be checked by the other branches. This allows for the balance of power. No one branch can be more powerful than the others. No one person or branch can act alone.

Ratification

• 9 out of the 13 states needed to ratify the Constitution in order for it to become the supreme law

• Federalists- supported the Constitution as it was written

• Antifederalists- supported states rights and a weaker central government, wanted a Bill of Rights added before ratification

Federalists vs. Anti-Federalists

• Supported the new Constitution

• A strong central government

• AKA Nationalists• The Federalist Papers• John Jay, Madison,

Hamilton• Wealthy- North

• Supported existing balance of power

• Revision of AofC, not rewrite

• Feared weakened states• Lacked unification• Wanted a Bill of Rights• Agriculture- small• South and West