hist.g5.s.civ.articles_of_confederation_failures
Analyze the Articles of Confederation (1781-1789) and explain why they failed — no power to tax, no executive, no national court, unanimous-consent amendment, 9-of-13 supermajority for major laws, Shays's Rebellion 1786-87
Describe the Articles of Confederation as the first US national government (drafted 1777, ratified 1781, replaced 1789). Identify SEVEN specific structural weaknesses: (1) no power to tax — Congress had to ASK the states for money, which they often refused; (2) no executive branch — Congress had to enforce its own laws, which it could not do; (3) no national court system; (4) unanimous consent of all 13 states required to AMEND the Articles (so they could not be repaired); (5) 9-of-13 supermajority required to pass major laws; (6) no power to regulate interstate or international commerce; (7) each state could print its own money and tax other states' goods. Identify TWO triggering events that revealed the failures: (a) the post-Revolutionary War economic depression and the inability of the national government to pay back its war debt; (b) Shays's Rebellion (Western Massachusetts farmers led by Revolutionary War veteran Daniel Shays, August 1786 - February 1787) — armed protest against high state taxes and farm foreclosures; Massachusetts had to put down the rebellion with its own militia (paid for by Boston merchants) because the national government could not help. Identify ONE achievement of the Articles era to balance: the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 (set the pattern for new states + banned slavery in the Northwest Territory + included a treaty provision with Indigenous nations 'their lands and property shall never be taken from them without their consent'). Apply C3 D2.Civ.5 (distinguish powers and responsibilities of governments) and D2.His.5 (causation).
- Construct a 4-band chronology of the Early Republic 1783-1850 — national events, presidencies, Indigenous-nation chronology, Black-American + reform-movement chronology — using MG-4 Chronology Strip
- Analyze the Declaration of Independence (July 4 1776) — its principles AND its contradictions — using the Founding Contradiction T-chart MG-13
- Describe the Constitutional Convention (May-September 1787, Philadelphia) — 55 delegates from 12 states (Rhode Island absent), Washington presiding, the Virginia Plan vs. New Jersey Plan, the Connecticut/Great Compromise, the 3-branch design, the 4-month deliberation under secrecy
- Explain the six core constitutional principles — federalism, separation of powers, checks and balances, popular sovereignty, limited government, judicial review — with concrete examples for each, via iCivics 'Branches of Power' simulation
- Believing the Articles 'never worked' — they got us through the end of the Revolutionary War and the Northwest Ordinance 1787; they failed at PEACETIME governance specifically.
- Missing that Shays's Rebellion (1786-87) was a TRIGGER for the Constitutional Convention — without it, the Convention might not have had the political support to draft a stronger government.
- Treating 'the states' as adversaries — the states were genuinely worried about a strong national government repeating British tyranny.
- Forgetting the Northwest Ordinance 1787 — it is the Articles-era achievement that set the pattern for ALL new state admissions and banned slavery in territory that became Ohio/Indiana/Illinois/Michigan/Wisconsin/Minnesota.