Confederation Dbq

In 1787, a couple of years after America broke away from England, the constitution we use today was made. Before, starting in 1777, the states operated under a government they called the “Articles of Confederation.” This government said that each state should have its own independence, and should operate within their own government. After 6 years, this government didn’t work well, because of civil unrest, bad trade, and inflation. A group of men led by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin, and others, believed in this constitution. These people were called Federalists. These federalists believed that the states should be operated by one unified single government. The Federalists wanted to write a new constitution,
This constitution was the first ever in the United States. The Articles didn’t really work, because there was a few problems. They basically said that each state was their own government, and the 13 states weren’t really connected under the same government at all. They has their own system of money, laws, trade, and others, and this didn’t work well at all. Each state’s currency had different value, which made it impossible to sell and trade stuff between states. Inflation was a big problem. The government was producing to much money. The amount in circulation was too much, and as a result, the value of money went down. This helped people in debt, because if they borrow something in a form other than money like meat, and the value of money goes down, then it takes less meat to pay of the debt. The debtor gets a good deal that way, but the creditor gets a bad deal. A final reason is that the society didn’t like the way the Articles of Confederation worked. Massachusetts set higher taxes, which hurt farm owners really bad. A man named Daniel Shays started a rebellion, and him and his followers would tar & feather any tax collectors who came to his house for money. Shays was a former American soldier who fought in Bunker Hill, so he was capable of starting a pretty major rebellion with his aggressive skills and
They didn’t want it to be that same type of centralized government, although they did want it to be a type of centralized government; specifically a federalized one. The difference between a centralized government and a federalized government is that a federalized one is more of a democracy. It is many different societies and smaller powers all operated and governed under one big power. America is the first ever example of that, with each state being operated under the central government. A centralized government is one with just a huge government that has all the power over one country. Our government is that as well, but this is a broad term. Dictatorships or monarchies are examples of other centralized but not federalized governments that have not worked very well. The U.S is both, and it works great under the