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Articles Of Confederation Vs New Government

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Since the nation was in debt the farmers could not sell goods. In Massachusetts angry farmers led by Daniel Shays revolted. In 1786, they forced courts to close to stop judges from taking farmers’ lands. In 1787, Shays led farmers to a federal arsenal in Springfield to seize arms stored there. The militia fired warning shots at the rebels.

12.5 million Africans were shipped to the New World. 10.7 million survived the dreaded Middle Passage, disembarking in North America, the Caribbean and South America.

Many American leaders believed the nation need a stronger national government to solve its problems. Madison and Alexander Hamilton tried to make a change. George Washington started to believe that the nation needed a change.

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The lower house voted people in the upper house to represent them. The number of representatives in both houses would be proportional, or corresponding in size, to the population of each state.

William Paterson of New Jersey presented a different plan. The New Jersey Plan was designed to revise the Articles of Confederation rather than form a new government. It kept the Confederation’s one-house legislature with one vote per state. This would preserve equality between large and small states. The plan, however, gave Congress the power to tax and regulate trade. Congress would elect a weak executive branch.

A compromise is an agreement between two or more sides in which each side gives up some of what it wants. Roger Sherman proposed a plan known as the Great Compromise. According to Sherman’s plan, the legislature would have two houses. Representation in the House of Representatives would be based on state population. In the Senate, each state would have two members.

Some states wanted to count slaves in the population. This would give them more representatives. Northern states objected because enslaved people were legally considered

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