Ch. 1.2. Before the Constitution: Criticism of the Articles and Shays’s Rebellion

Federal Union under the Articles. The Articles of Confederation created a nation of pre-existing states rather than a government over individuals… There was only one branch of the federal government, the Congress; there was no independent executive or judiciary. In Congress the states were equally represented: each had one vote, regardless of the size of its population (Art. 5). The Congress had only those powers that were expressly “enumerated,” i.e., explicitly stated (Art. 2). Many decisions, including issuing money, raising taxes, borrowing money, making treaties, and engaging in war, required the support of two thirds (nine) of the thirteen states (Art. 9). Amendment was required to endow the union with powers that weren’t specifically articulated, and amendments required the unanimous approval of all thirteen state legislatures (Art. 13).

The International Scene. A number of American leaders, pointing to a series of failed treaties or agreements, were concerned that the United States as constituted under the Articles was unable to deal effectively with foreign powers. For example, claiming that the U.S. had not made restitution for loyalists’ property as required by the 1783 Treaty of Paris, Britain maintained its forts along the southern shores of the Great Lakes (e.g., at Detroit and Niagara), while arming and supporting Native Americans of the region against American settlers. In 1784 Congress sent John Adams to London to try to resolve these problems and to negotiate a new commercial treaty that would allow American traders greater access to British domestic markets. But Britain conceded nothing, refusing through the 1780s even to send an ambassador to the U.S., in part because of the view that the U.S. were really thirteen separate nations.

Jay-Gardoqui Treaty Rejected by Congress, 1786. Despite the terms of the Peace of Paris allowing Americans free navigation on the Mississippi, in 1784 Spain closed the port of New Orleans to American shipping. Congress sent John Jay to Spain to negotiate a new treaty concerning both navigation on the Mississippi and the precise border between Georgia and Spanish Florida, where Spanish-supported Creek Indians claimed lands also claimed by the U.S. After long negotiations, in 1786 Jay and Spanish diplomat Diego de Gardoqui signed a treaty that left the Mississippi under Spanish control for twenty years, but settled the Florida border in the U.S.’s favor and opened Spanish domestic markets to American traders. In Congress, northern states accepted this, but the southern states angrily rejected it. No agreement was reached, leaving both the Florida border and the Mississippi tense and intermittently violent.

A Weak Nation? Thus in the 1780s the United States had robust state governments and a weak continental arrangement. Several statesmen, including notably George Washington, were concerned that the idea of an American mind that had emerged during the war with Britain was about to disappear and the Articles of Confederation were inadequate to foster the development of an American character. According to Washington, “we have errors to correct.” He argued that the states refused to comply with the articles of peace, the union was unable to regulate interstate commerce, and the states met, but only grudgingly, just the minimum interstate standards required by the Articles.

Reckless States? Others, especially James Madison, were concerned that the state legislatures——dominated by what he saw as oppressive, unjust, and overbearing majorities——were passing laws detrimental to the rights of individual conscience and the right to private property. And there was nothing that the union government could do about it because the Articles left matters of religion and commerce to the states. The solution, concluded Madison, was to create an extended republic, in which a variety of opinions, passions, and interests would check and balance each other, supported by a governmental framework that endorsed a separation of powers between the branches of the general government. Between 1781 and 1785 attempts “to correct these errors” failed to secure the required unanimous consent of the state legislatures.

Shays’s Rebellion, 1786-87. One event seems to have played a key role in winning more political leaders over to Washington’s and Madison’s views, a rebellion of small farmers and debtors in western Massachusetts. Frustrated by several years of economic difficulty, property foreclosures, and a lack of responsiveness on the part of state government, beginning in late August, 1786, large groups of armed men, including many Revolutionary War veterans like Daniel Shays, marched into county courthouses to block further debt collections and farm foreclosures. The rebels demanded that the state government grant tax relief, issue paper money, and establish a moratorium on debts. The state government eventually suppressed the rebellion, but not until the Spring of 1787 and only with difficulty; most participants were pardoned. George Washington and many others who had been criticizing the weakness of the Articles felt that a stronger national government was needed in order to face such challenges.

Source: the above summary of the Articles’ weaknesses and the paragraphs on criticisms of it by Washington and Madison are adapted from the Teaching American History website, from the page, Introduction to the Constitutional Convention. On the influence of Shays’s Rebellion, see also Foner, American Freedom, pp. 22-23.