REER - After the Revolution (Lesson)
After the Revolution
Northwest Ordinance
Almost right away there were opportunities and challenges relating to the settlement of the new territory gained in the Treaty of Paris (1783.) The first U.S. territory outside the original states was the Northwest Territory which was created by the Northwest Ordinance. This law demonstrated to Americans that their national government intended to encourage westward expansion and that it would do so by organizing new states that would be equal members of the Union. The ordinance banned slavery in the Northwest Territory. This law made the Ohio River the boundary between free and unfree regions between the thirteen states and the Mississippi River. Additionally, the Northwest Ordinance mandated the establishment of public schools in the Northwest Territory. See the lecture notes for more details about this topic. Links to an external site.
Closer Look: Northwest Ordinance
Image Credit: Map from americanhistoryusa.com
Articles of Confederation and Shays' Rebellion
The Articles of Confederation were written during the American Revolution. The document reflected Americans' fear of a powerful national government. After all, they had just gotten away from an authoritarian government and Americans were understandably reluctant to get themselves into a similar situation again.
As a result, the Articles of Confederation created a government that had no executive or judicial branch and lacked the power to tax, regulate commerce, or establish one standard national currency. The Articles gave individual states more power than the national government had. As a result, conflicts between the states threatened the existence of the nation.
The political weakness of the United States and its potential for collapse left it vulnerable to attack by foreign countries and convinced many influential Americans to support a Constitutional Convention. Political leaders were further motivated by Shays' Rebellion which they felt set a precedent for mob rule. After all, the very men who protested in Shays’ Rebellion had proven that they were willing to stand up to even the very strong British government---and they were capable of standing up to the new United States government too.
Daniel Shays, a Revolutionary War veteran, led more than a thousand farmers in western Massachusetts who, like him, were overburdened with personal debts caused by economic problems stemming from the states' Revolutionary War debts. Shays and his men shut down a court in Massachusetts in just one of many protests debt-ridden farmers made during this period. (Shays and his men closed the courts to prevent judges from foreclosing on their farms—farms that included their homes and the land they needed to earn a living.)
Without the power to tax, America's weak government could not repair the national economy.
Responding to Shays' Rebellion, George Washington supported the establishment of a stronger central government. In May 1787, he was elected president of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, where he and the Founding Fathers created a federalist republic form of government for the United States.
View this presentation on the early years of the U.S. under the Articles of Confederation with the times' struggle for unity and the settlement of western lands.
After Shays’ Rebellion, state and central government leaders decided that a stronger governmental structure was needed if the new nation was to prosper and survive in the long-term. The culmination was the Constitutional Convention which met in Philadelphia at the Pennsylvania State House (now known as Independence Hall) in May 1787.
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