The Collapse of the Confederation

Manufacturers wanted to replace the various state tariffs with a uniformly high national duty. Merchants wanted to replace the thirteen different and largely ineffective state commercial policies with a single national policy. Land speculators wanted Indians removed from the western territories. Creditors wanted to stop the states from issuing inflated paper currency. Investors in government bonds wanted the government to honor the value of their securities. Large property owners looked for protection from the threat of mobs, which seemed particularly menacing in the aftermath of Shays's Rebellion.

By 1786 the demands of such groups had grown so irresistible that the issue was no longer whether the Confederation should be changed but how drastic the changes should be. Even proponents of the existing system reluctantly concluded that the national government needed to be strengthened. In response to this outcry, James Madison (1751-1836) persuaded the Virginia legislature to convene an interstate conference on commercial questions.

Only five states sent delegates to the meeting, held in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1786. But they approved a proposal drafted by Alexander Hamilton (1755-1804) of New York recommending that Congress call a special convention to meet the next year to consider ways to revise the Articles of Confederation. At that moment, there seemed little likelihood that the Philadelphia convention would attract any more interest than the meeting at Annapolis had. Then, early in 1787, news of Shays's Rebellion spread throughout the nation. Many who had once been indifferent to the call for a convention, such as George Washington (1732-1799), suddenly came to see it as necessary to calming the turmoil that threatened to engulf the nation.

Want To Know More? Visit the following: the Library of Congress To Form a More Perfect Union, and Policies and Problems of the Confederation Congress

Check Out At Your Library: Joyce Hakim's The New Nation (grade 4+).

Next Week: A Convention in Philadelphia

Go To Page: 1 2