Okay, so l

Notes

Okay, so let’s rewind. America just won the Revolutionary War. We beat Britain. Huge win. Everyone’s hyped. But then reality hits… now we actually have to run a country, and no one’s ever done this before without a king. At first, the U.S. is using something called the Articles of Confederation. Think of this as America being too scared of strong government. They just escaped a king, so they were like, “Let’s make the national government super weak.” And they did. Too weak. Under the Articles: • Congress couldn’t collect taxes • Congress couldn’t really enforce laws • States acted like separate countries That becomes a big problem. Then comes Shays’ Rebellion, which your teacher probably emphasized. Farmers in Massachusetts are in debt, losing their land, and the government can’t help them. They rebel. And the national government? It literally can’t stop it because it has no army. This scares leaders BADLY. They realize: if we don’t fix this, the country could fall apart. So in 1787, they meet at the Constitutional Convention. Technically, they’re supposed to fix the Articles… but instead they’re like, “Let’s scrap this and start over.” That’s when they write the U.S. Co...