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Shay's Rebellion

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The United States system of government was changed from the Articles of confederation to the United States constitution due to the many problems it faced. After fighting the revolutionary war for independence, the people won the right to govern themselves. Unhappy with the system of government they were under with British rule they sought to create the opposite form of government within themselves. So the Founding Fathers established a government with a weak central branch through the Articles of Confederation. There were many problems faced under this system, so the Constitutional Convention met to revise the Articles. In 1787, instead of just rewriting the Articles, the Founding Fathers decided to create a new form of government that was …show more content…
The Articles of Confederation created a weak central government that had no executive or judicial powers. The problems with this form of government were starting to become prominent during Shay’s Rebellion. Shay’s Rebellion was a series of protests in 1786 and 1787 by American farmers against state and local enforcement of tax collections and judgments for debt. The government's lack of power prevented them from responding to Shay's Rebellion. Shay’s Rebellion showed the need of constitutional reform in the of the Articles of Confederation. As a result, the representatives of the Constitutional Convention made sure that the central government had enough power to deal with domestic issues. The success of this policy was later shown with the Whisky Rebellion, a tax on whisky protest. The constitution includes an indirectly elected president to properly govern the states. George Washington, the first president’s response was to raise the militia to march over to west Pennsylvania in order to end the rebellion. That showed how strong the government was and their power over the …show more content…
The Bill of Rights is an example of a drastic change. Under the Articles of Confederation, the fundamental rights of citizens were protected by state bills of rights. However, the first ten amendments to the Constitution gave rights to the individual. The major difference between these is that under the articles of confederation, the government could not really enforce the laws. But with the constitution, the government had the power to enforce laws therefore making them more real. The Constitution's philosophical ideas were shown by enlightenment thinkers such as John Locke, Jean Jacques Rousseau and Baron de Montesquieu. Locke’s conception of natural rights for all of mankind was being violated by British oppression so they drafted a government and code that was helpful in guaranteeing natural rights under law creating the bill of rights. Concepts such as freedom from oppression, natural rights, and new ways of thinking about governmental structure came from Enlightenment philosophers and laid the foundations for both colonial and modern America. The people would be in control of their own government, and the government had the responsibilities to protect its people's rights. For instance, Montesquieu’s idea about the balance of power between three branches of government was used in the separation of powers and the use of checks and balances. Rousseau had

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