The Shays Rebellion And The Articles Of Confederation

Without Shays’ Rebellion, our nation's leaders would not have realized the problems The Articles of Confederation caused for the people. The leaders that realized this problem were George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison. They fixed this problem by starting the drafting of The Constitution at the Constitutional Convention in 1787. Shay’s Rebellion was an important conflict caused by the government’s weak economic policy and led to the actual rebellion which then resulted in the Constitutional Convention. The rebellion was based in the Massachusetts countryside at the end of the Revolutionary War. The government started to inforce increasingly large taxes that primarily affected Continental Army veterans, state militia veterans, and farmers (mountvernon.org). They enforced these larger taxes in order to pay for foreign debt that was being demanded to be paid. They were affected because they received little pay and reimbursement for their military services. Farmers also started to lose land and property due to the large debts. Many veterans and farmers started to attend town meetings to try and resolve this problem, but they soon realized all of them were in the …show more content…
With the realization of the problems caused Articles of Confederation, the leaders were able to come up with The Constitution which was drafted at the Constitutional Convention. The Constitution established America’s national government by explaining the fundamental laws and basic rights America would follow in order to have a well balanced government. Before the Constitution, the government could not change anything in The Articles of a Confederation which caused significant problems during Shays’ Rebellion. Shay’s Rebellion made it clear that The Articles of Confederation were not