The Post War Crisis

• US faced serious problems post-war

  • huge state and national debts

  • economic depression

  • too much territory to control

  • enemies/rivals on all sides

• articles of confederation government was too weak to solve problems

  • one vote per state

  • no executive or judiciary

  • no power to tax

  • states kept full sovereignty

• big questions of the Revolution unresolved:

  • role and limits of central government

  • tax collection

  • western expansion

  • fate of slavery

Paying for the Revolution

• state and national governments owed huge sums to private elite creditors

• congress asked states to help pay

  • some refused

  • some (especially Massachussetts) raised taxes

    • hit poor/middling farmers the hardest (some owed 1/3 of income in state taxes)

    • foreclosures and property loss

    • tax and foreclosed property both went to elite creditors