The Articles of Confederation and the road to the Constitution | History with Ms. H.

hi welcome to class today today we're going to be discussing America's first system of government the Articles of Confederation and how that eventually led to the creation of the Constitution at the Constitutional Convention so let's get started [Music] while you're watching the video today if you have any questions do not hesitate to leave them in the comments below I'll get back to you as soon as possible and don't forget to hit subscribe so you can be notified about more history videos coming your way by the end of the video you need to be able to answer these four questions one what were the strengths and weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation - what was the importance of Shay's rebellion three what was the original purpose of the Constitutional Convention and four you need to describe the major compromises the delegates made at the Constitutional Convention after the thirteen colonies declared independence in 1776 they needed to create a government to run their new country the Continental Congress created the Articles of Confederation in 1777 the Articles of Confederation were a reaction to the British government's actions leading to the American Revolution the colonists saw the executive or King George the third as having too much power and believed that power should lie with their local assemblies remember in the Declaration almost all the grievances begin with the word he referring to the king because of this the government created by the Articles of Confederation had no executive branch there was nothing like a president or a king to oversee the government it also had no national court system the Articles of Confederation only created a National Congress each state would elect members to the Congress but each state only got one vote regardless of the state's population in order to pass a law nine of the thirteen states had to agree and to amend or change the Articles of Confederation all thirteen states needed to agree the Articles of Confederation gave Congress limited powers like they could conduct Foreign Affairs the Armed Forces borrow money issue currency create a postal system and declare war or make peace according to the Articles of Confederation all powers not explicitly given to the National Congress were left for the states this means the National Congress could not impose taxes regulate trade between the states or with other countries or create an army or Navy in effect it was like the United States was thirteen independent countries all of them doing whatever they wanted this presented some challenges for the national government for example the national government had the responsibility to maintain the army but they couldn't force citizens or states to send people to join it for what soldiers they did have they were responsible for paying their salaries they couldn't get money from the states to pay them with there was no way to enforce national laws so even though there was a national currency the seep started printing their own money anyway if someone was traveling from Virginia to North Carolina they would have to trade their Virginia dollars for North Carolina dollars the national government also cannot regulate trade so the states began imposing tariffs or taxes on imported goods on each other this means that Virginia could put a higher tax on goods coming from South Carolina than from Georgia this would lead to people in Virginia buying goods from Georgia instead of South Carolina causing major disagreements between Virginia and South Carolina and Congress to make matters worse all of the states had different trade laws so foreign countries would need to create different trade agreements with each individual state something they were not willing to do things became so chaotic European countries were waiting for the United States to fall apart and go crawling back to Great Britain remember nine out of the thirteen states needed to agree to pass new laws and all 13 States had to agree to the articles these trade policies and regional differences made it virtually impossible to pass any laws and get the seats to agree needless to say the laws were passed and the articles were never amended could you imagine if all 50 states had to agree today to change the constitution it would never happen the Articles of Confederation we're not all bad though the government was able to make an alliance with France and effectively fight the British Armed Forces to win the American Revolution a significant achievement the national government was also able to negotiate the Treaty of Paris of 1783 with the British government to end the war finally Congress was able to pass a few laws like the Northwest Ordinance on the land ordinance of 1785 the Northwest Ordinance established the Northwest Territory which included the modern-day state of Ohio Indiana Illinois Michigan and Wisconsin the law established rules for admitting new States a guaranteed that new states would have the same powers as the original states the Northwest Ordinance was also the first law to limit the spread of slavery in the United States making slavery illegal in the Northwest Territory finally the law guaranteed the freedom of religion and the right to trial by jury to all people living in these territories the land ordinance of 1785 another law passed by Congress also set up systems for the purchase of land and how land would be distributed have you ever flown over the Midwest and noticed that the land looked like it was made up of squares that's because of the land ordinance as you can see the Articles of Confederation gave the government very limited power and there were some massive flaws these flaws were fully exposed in 1786 when Daniel Shays led an armed revolt against the government of Massachusetts in response to taxation Daniel Shays was a former soldier in the Continental Army and was a farmer living in Massachusetts the state kept raising taxes and taking away farms when people couldn't pay their debts Daniel Shays was very upset by this system he himself had been taken to court in 1780 because he had not paid his debts while he'd been fighting in the American Revolution remember the government couldn't pay him because they couldn't raise taxes in the fall of 1786 he led an armed revolt with over 5,000 followers against the Massachusetts government their goal was to stop the courts from meeting which led to them burning down some courthouses remember the national government had no power to raise an army so it was up to the Massachusetts militia to stop the rebellion other states began to see what was going on in Massachusetts and realized the government needed to change they didn't want a rebellion like that in their state so in the summer of 1787 55 delegates from 12 states Rhode Island refused to send anyone met in Philadelphia to fix the Articles of Confederation many of the all-stars from the time were at the Constitutional Convention including George Washington who served as the president of the convention James Madison from Virginia Benjamin Franklin who was the oldest delegate at 81 years old and newcomer Alexander Hamilton there were several notable people who are not at the convention like Thomas Jefferson and John Adams who are both serving as ambassadors to France and Great Britain at the time Patrick Henry who was famous for his give me liberty or give me death speech before the American Revolution refused to attend the convention because he smelled a rat meaning he was afraid they would not amend the Articles as they had stated but instead would create a new system of government that would take too much power away from the states after arriving in Philadelphia the delegates made three decisions first they realized they couldn't fix the Articles of Confederation they were beyond repair they were much of a mess so they tossed him out and started over second they agreed each state would get one vote regardless of the state's population or the size of the delegation sent to the convention finally they agreed to keep the proceedings private for thirty years so the delegates could speak freely without fear of judgement from those back home one of the first decisions the delegates had to make was how the government would be structured and how the people would be represented the first proposal was called the Virginia Plan written by James Madison the Virginia plan created three branches of government the legislative branch or Congress the executive branch the president and the judicial branch with the court system each branch would have specific responsibilities and each of the branches would be able to check the others to make sure they didn't take too much power Congress would be bicameral meaning it would have two houses both houses would have proportional representation or representation based on the state's population the more people living in a state the more Representatives that state would have in Congress Virginia had the largest population at the time so their plan favored large states small states or states with smaller populations feared they would have no voice in the government under the Virginia Plan so two weeks after the Virginia plan was presented William Paterson presented the New Jersey Plan this plan kept the three branches of government but said the Congress would be unicameral meaning it would have one house and there would be equal representation every state would have the same number of votes regardless of size after several weeks of debate Roger Sherman of Connecticut presented the great compromise also known as the Connecticut compromise this compromise kept the three branches of government and focused on representation in Congress they proposed a bicameral legislature with a House of Representatives and a Senate the House of Representatives would have proportional representation like the Virginia Plan suggested and the Senate would have equal representation like the New Jersey plan suggested this compromise settled the debate between large and small states by giving both proportional and equal representation the issue of representation led to another debate among the delegates how should slaves be counted for purposes of representation northern seats argued that because slaves didn't have the right to vote and weren't given the rights of citizens they should not be counted in the population numbers southern states however argued that because the slaves were living within the borders of the state they should be counted this debate made many of the framers realized that the true divide in the United States would not be between large and small states but between free and slave states several delegates including Ben Franklin and Alexander Hamilton were members of early anti-slavery societies and about 25 delegates in attendance owned slaves including George Washington and James Madison some delegates advocating for abolishing slavery in the United States while others wanted it protected by the Constitution to compromise on the slave trade they agreed that Congress would not interfere in the transatlantic slave trade for 20 years after 1807 there would not be any more slaves imported into the United States they also added a Fugitive Slave Clause to the Constitution saying that runaway slaves would have to be returned to their owners this was later abolished by the 13th amendment which meets slavery illegal in 1865 after many months of debating the delegates finally approved the Constitution on September 17 1787 but they would need to take it to the public and it needed nine states to ratify it before it became the law of the land this ignited a national debate about the nature of the Constitution and democratic government itself more on that later next time we'll discuss the document itself focusing on the seven principles of the Constitution I hope you have a great day and I'll see you in class [Music] you

Channel: History with Ms. H

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Keywords: Articles of Confederation, The Articles of Confederation, Virginia Plan, New Jersey Plan, The Great Compromise, The Connecticut Plan, The Northwest Ordinance, Northwest Ordinance, articles of confederation weaknesses, articles of confederation definition, articles of confederation strengths, what articles of confederation, articles of confederation vs constitution, what is the great compromise, what is shays rebellion, what is virginia plan, what is new jersey plan, constitution

Id: -1XuBbRuU20

Length: 14min 9sec (849 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 23 2020