The historical context of the Constitution 35
many states charged tolls and fees to export goods across state lines. (Just imagine
how difficult interstate commerce would be today if you had to exchange currency at
every state line and if the value of your currency varied depending on which state you
were in.)
A small group of leaders decided that something had to be done. A group from
Virginia urged state legislatures to send delegates to a convention on interstate
commerce in Annapolis, Maryland, in September 1786. Only five states sent delegates.
However, Alexander Hamilton and James Madison salvaged success from the
convention by getting those delegates to agree to convene again in Philadelphia the
following May. Delegates to the Annapolis Convention also agreed that the next
convention would examine the defects of the current government and “devise such
further provisions as shall appear to them necessary to render the Constitution of the
Federal Government adequate to the exigencies of the Union.”^9
The issues that motivated the Annapolis Convention gained new urgency as events
unfolded over the next several months. Economic chaos and depression in the years
after the war had caused many farmers to lose their land because they could not pay
their debts or state taxes. Frustration mounted throughout the latter half of 1786, and
early in 1787 a former captain in the Revolutionary army, Daniel Shays, led a force of
1,500 men in an attempt to take over the Massachusetts state government arsenal in
Springfield. Their goal was to force the state courts to stop prosecuting debtors and
taking their land, but the rebels were repelled by a state militia. Similar protests on a
smaller scale took place in Pennsylvania and Virginia. Some state legislatures gave in
to the debtors’ demands, causing national leaders to fear that Shays’s Rebellion had
exposed fundamental discontent with the new government. The very future of the
fledgling nation was at risk.
Shays’s Rebellion
An uprising of about 1,500 men in
Massachusetts in 1786 and 1787 to
protest oppressive laws and gain
payment of war debts. The unrest
prompted calls for a new constitution.
1775–1783 Revolutionary War
September
First
Continental
Congress
February 6
Treaty of
Alliance
with France
January
First
publication
of Thomas
Paine’s
Common
Sense
July
Congress
adopts the
Declaration of
Independence
May
Second
Continental
Congress
November 15
Articles of
Confederation
adopted by
Congress, sent
to the states
for ratification
March 1
Articles of
Confederation
are ratified by
the requisite
number
of states
October 19
Cornwallis
surrenders
the British
army at
Yorktown
September 3
Treaty of Paris signed,
ending the Revolutionary War
August 1786 –
January 1787
Shays’s Rebellion
September 14
Annapolis
delegates
decide that
Articles need
to be fixed
June 21
Constitution
ratified when
New Hampshire
is the ninth
state to ratify
September 17
Constitution
signed
October 27
Federalist Papers
begin appearing
in New York
newspapers
May 25
Constitutional
Convention
begins in
Philadelphia
March 4
Constitution
takes e ect
1774 1775 1776 1777 1778 1779 1780 1781 1782 1783 1784 1785 1786 1787 1788 1789
1781–1789 Articles of Confederation period
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