Genesis of the U.S. Constitution and the shift from Articles to the Constitution

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.” 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.” This means no branch gets too powerful. Each branch can limit the others. 3. Makes the federal government stronger, but still limited.