Shays' Rebellion--Western Massachusetts, 1786
Memorial & Remonstrance, James Madison, 1785 (Virginia religious freedom proclamation)
I. New Social Fabrics
2. Entail and primogeniture repealed, weakening aristocracy.
3. Slavery weakened
b) Some northern states abolished slavery or provided for phased emancipation
2. Democratic spirit encouraged spread of frontier faiths (Methodism, Baptists).
3. Strong statement of separation of church and state written by Jefferson in Virginia in 1786.
B. Postwar economic problems resulted from severing ties with
Britain
2) Speculation and profiteering during the war had led to inflation with Congress unable to control its effects
3) New class of profiteers emerged
4) Economic causes of war had led to distate for taxes, further weakening Congress' ability to take action.
B. Congress was the dominant force (no executive or federal courts),
but it was hobbled by rules:
2. Any amendment to the Articles required a unanimous vote
3. Each state had 1 vote.
4. No power to regulate commerce
5. No tax enforcement power (states paid taxes voluntarily).
2. Land divided into townships six miles square (then into 36 sections of one square mile each).
3. One section reserved for a public school.
2. Slavery forbidded in Northwest.
2. Spain seized lands granted to the U.S. by Britain and harassed trade on the Mississippi River.
3. France demanded repayment of loans made during the Revolution and restricted trade with the West Indies.
2. States began levying duties on each other's products and quarreling over boundaries.
3. Shays' Rebellion (1786) broke out in western Massachusetts
with frustrated farmers losing their farms due to mortgage foreclosures
and tax delinquencies.
B. 55 representatives from 12 states (Rhode Island boycotted) assembled in Philadelphia in May 1787 to "make a more perfect union."
Please cite this source when appropriate:
Feldmeth, Greg D. "U.S. History Resources"
http://home.earthlink.net/~gfeldmeth/USHistory.html (31 March 1998).
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