The Constitutionalist Guide: Volume I

The Inheritance Problem: Why Independence Was Not Enough

Forged in Argument: How the U.S. Constitution Was Actually Built

Welcome to The Constitutionalist Guide project; a 12 Volume series created to help teach Americans not just about the U.S. Constitution, but more importantly about how and why it was crafted in the manner it was by our Founding Fathers.

This historical narrative project offers readers a glimpse of what the fledgling United States was like just after winning the Revolutionary War and the problems it faced through conflict, compromise, and real human drama.

It’s designed to make the founding of America’s government understandable, compelling, and relevant for modern readers who did not got the full picture in school.

At a time when constitutional debates dominate headlines but public understanding lags behind, this project will help bridge the gap—not with boring lectures, but with an accurate and gripping, volume by volume narrative that shows how fragile, flawed, and fiercely debated this system truly was.

Without further ado, let’s dive in.

The Inheritance Problem: Why Independence Was Not Enough

I. Introduction

On a crisp autumn day in 1783, General George Washington watched the last of the British troops depart New York City.

The American Revolution was officially over.

The thirteen colonies turned states had won their independence after years of bloodshed and sacrifice. One might imagine this was the triumphant “happily ever after” scenario that ended of all the young nation’s troubles.

Spoiler alert: it wasn’t.

In fact, American independence, as glorious as it was, did not magically solve the country’s problems. In many ways, it created new ones.

The newly free United States soon found itself stumbling like a newborn colt: wobbly, unsure, and dangerously unsteady. What exactly had these revolutionaries inherited after victory?

A fragile nation hanging together by a thread, or perhaps more aptly, by a “firm league of friendship” (as their first national charter coyly described it). It turns out that kicking out a king was one thing, but building a country to replace him was quite another.

II. Victory... Now What?

Think of the American states in 1783 like a band of allied commanders who just defeated a common enemy. The war was won, high fives were shared all around, and the crowd went wild, so to speak.

But once the enemy was gone, the alliance started looking a bit shaky without a common foe to unite them, thus those allies quickly turned into rivals.

That’s exactly what happened to the United States.

During the war, the thirteen colonies had cooperated (sometimes grudgingly, but often times through a necessity for survival) under the guidance of the Continental Congress and General Washington’s leadership.

But... with peace at hand, old suspicions and local interests bubbled back to the surface. Independence had given Americans freedom from Britain, but not a clear path forward on how to govern themselves collectively. The Treaty of Paris may have delivered international recognition, yet on the ground at home, chaos and uncertainty reigned.

The young United States was less a single nation than a loose confederation of mini states (more akin to separate countries, though).

People did not wake up in 1784 thinking of themselves as citizens of one united country. More accurately, they thought of themselves as New Yorkers, Virginians, or Georgians first... and Americans second.

The states operated like independent republics, each with its own laws, interests, and even its own money. Yes, that’s right, if you traveled from, say, Pennsylvania to Maryland, you might have to exchange currencies along the way, as if crossing between France and Spain before the Euro was adopted.

If that sounds like a recipe for economic headache, it was. The post Revolution era was called the “Critical Period,” and for good reason. The euphoria of victory was quickly replaced by the hangover of governing a fractured, financially broken, and squabbling collection of states.

III. A Fragile Union on the Brink

The first attempt at a national government was organized under a document called the Articles of Confederation. Think of the Articles as the beta version of the U.S. government: an early prototype with a lot of bugs.

It was drafted during the Revolution, when Americans were understandably wary of any system that smelled like the centralized British tyranny they’d just escaped. So, the Articles of Confederation created a deliberately weak central government and left most powers to the states.

The Continental Congress envisioned under the Articles could make decisions about war and peace and handle some diplomacy, but it couldn’t tax, couldn’t regulate interstate commerce, and couldn’t enforce much of anything.

In essence, the national Congress could ask the states to do things, but it had no teeth to compel them. It was like a captain issuing orders that the crew were free to ignore.

This was by design, mind you, as Americans feared a strong central authority, but it turned out to be a critical design flaw that nearly sank the new nation.

Under the Articles, the states entered into what was poetically termed “a firm league of friendship” with each other. In practice, that meant each state jealously guarded its sovereignty. Congress was a single chamber body where each state, big or small, had one equal vote.

Passing any major law required a super majority of 9 out of 13 states to agree. Amending the system required unanimous consent, which was effectively impossible. There was no executive branch (no president or governor or general to enforce laws) and no national court system to resolve disputes.

The result? Drift and dysfunction. Imagine a sports team with thirteen co-coaches, each of whom can veto the others’ game plan. That was the United States in the 1780s.

Without a strong central authority, the country’s finances and foreign policy fell into disarray. The war had left America deep in debt, owing millions to foreign lenders and to its own soldiers.

Congress had no power to tax the people directly; it could only politely request money from state governments. Surprise: the states, dealing with their own post war economic messes, often declined to pony up.

The national treasury was perpetually empty. To cover expenses during the war, Congress had printed paper money—the infamous Continentals—which depreciated so badly that “not worth a Continental” became a bitter joke. By the mid 1780s, there was no stable national currency.

Some states printed their own paper money, while others only trusted gold or silver coins. If you think handling different currencies on a road trip sounds fun, 18th century Americans would assure you it was not. Trade absolutely suffered as a result.

Interstate relations were not much better. With Congress too weak to regulate commerce, states began treating each other almost like foreign countries. They imposed tariffs on each other’s goods and quarreled over boundaries.

New York, for example, taxed firewood coming in from Connecticut and cabbages from New Jersey. In response, New Jersey and Connecticut retaliated or found ways around New York’s dominance.

James Madison observed that the states were basically bickering and undercutting one another rather than working toward any common good. It was a tariff war free for all as each state looked out for themselves at the expense of their neighbors. The spirit of unity forged during the revolution was rapidly evaporating in a haze of selfish commerce and regional rivalry.

Meanwhile, across the ocean, European powers watched the American experiment with a mix of amusement and opportunism.

Britain, in particular, seemed in no hurry to honor certain provisions of the peace treaty. There were British troops who refused to evacuate frontier forts on American soil in the Midwest. Why? Because the U.S. government was too weak to enforce the treaty terms or threaten consequences.

The British knew this, and they poked at our young nation’s sore spots relentlessly. Spain closed off the Mississippi River to American navigation, crippling western farmers’ trade routes, and Congress could do little beyond diplomatic pleading.

Without a single figurehead or strong government to negotiate effectively, the United States was often disrespected in international affairs during this time. It was as if the rest of the world sensed that America was on the verge of disunion and did not feel compelled to treat it seriously.

To top it off, Congress itself was often paralyzed and wholly ineffective (not much has changed though, amirite?). Attendance by delegates was poor, with no strong incentives or travel reimbursements, and many state representatives simply stayed home. Those who did show up found it nearly impossible to pass meaningful legislation.

Remember that 9/13 requirement? Getting nine states to agree on contentious issues (like trade policy or how to share war debt) was like finding a Specialist in the Army actually doing work.

And if you wanted to change the Articles to fix any of these problems, forget it, as convincing all thirteen states to ratify an amendment was a political unicorn.

One frustrated delegate quipped that trying to govern under the Articles was like trying to tune a violin with 13 different people turning the pegs.

This was the state of the “Union” just a few years after Yorktown: disunited, broke, and increasingly unstable. As Washington, who had returned to private life at Mount Vernon, lamented, it was “a half starved, limping government, always moving upon crutches, and tottering at every step.”

The hero of the Revolution himself was watching the nation he fought for falter with no easy solution in sight. The government’s weakness was not just an abstract problem; it was being felt by everyday Americans as well.

IV. Suspicion of Power – The Double Edged Legacy

How did the United States end up with such a rickety system? The answer lies in the Revolution’s very ideals. As previously discussed, the Founding generation was deeply suspicious of centralized power... understandably so. They had, after all, just rebelled against a king and a faraway Parliament that had imposed taxes and laws on them without local consent.

The cry “No taxation without representation!” was fresh in everyone’s memory. Having expelled one overbearing central authority, the last thing Americans wanted was to create a new one on their own soil. In the 1780s, many patriots still flinched at the notion of a strong national government as if it were a slippery slope back to tyranny.

State governments, being closer to the people, felt safer and more controllable. If you didn’t like your state legislature’s decision, at least you had some influence there; but a distant national government? That felt like the British all over again.

So the Articles of Confederation were intentionally crafted to keep the central government weak. Picture the Founders at the drawing board: “Let’s make sure we never get another King George. We’ll give the states most of the say, and leave the national Congress dependent on the states’ good will.”

It was a bit like building a fortress with all the doors wide open, great for preventing tyranny on the inside, but not so great at keeping out chaos from the outside. The philosophy was noble in principle: power, they believed, should be diffuse, checked, and balanced. Liberty was best preserved when governance was local and limited.

And for a while during the war, that approach had sufficed (thanks largely to the unifying threat of British invasion). But in peacetime, the cracks in this arrangement became glaring.

Some of the wisest figures of the Revolution started to worry that they might have gone too far in opposing central authority:

James Madison, a young politician from Virginia, observed the mayhem between states and concluded that a stronger framework was needed.

Alexander Hamilton, a former aide to Washington, had always favored a more robust national government and felt vindicated by the post war disorder.

George Washington, initially hoping to enjoy retirement, grew increasingly alarmed as he read reports of one crisis after another.

Still, any talk of strengthening the federal government had to tiptoe around the huge elephant in the room: Americans’ ingrained fear of concentrated power. Proposing to beef up Congress or create new national powers was often met with knee jerk suspicion,“Are you trying to make a new king or something?”

Indeed, when a convention was eventually proposed to revise the government, the famous firebrand Patrick Henry refused to attend, growling, “I smell a rat.” Henry and others suspected that any changes might enslave the states to a powerful central authority.

This was the delicate tightrope the Founders had to walk: the nation’s system was failing because it was too weak, yet many citizens reflexively distrusted any solution that might make it stronger.

It was a classic case of being damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

V. Chaos Rising: The System Starts to Fall Apart

By the mid 1780s, the United States’ problems were escalating from annoying to existential. The year 1786 became a turning point. Economic depression gripped much of the country. With trade hamstrung and debts mounting, farmers and laborers were in dire straits.

State governments, desperate for revenue (since Congress couldn’t raise it for them), levied taxes that hit small farmers hard. Remember, many of these farmers were war veterans who had not been paid fully for their service.

Talk about adding insult to injury: they had fought for liberty and returned home to find themselves facing bankruptcy and foreclosure.

In western Massachusetts, frustration boiled over into open revolt. A former Army captain named Daniel Shays became the reluctant figurehead of an uprising by farmers in late 1786. These men, drowning in debt and taxes, decided to take matters into their own hands.

They banded together to shut down courthouses (to prevent judges from foreclosing on their farms) and ultimately marched on the federal arsenal in Springfield, MA, with the idea of arming themselves for a longer fight. They felt they were rebelling for the same principles of justice that the Revolution had been fought over, only now the perceived oppressor wasn’t King George, but their own unresponsive state government and creditors.

It was a dramatic and alarming sight: American citizens, with coats and hats bearing the emblems of the Revolution, now taking up arms against the government of Massachusetts. The rebellion, known as Shays’ Rebellion, sent shockwaves through the states.

Here was proof that the unrest and economic suffering could literally ignite into violence. The timing was ironic and ominous, as they just had a revolution a few years back. Was a second one already at hand?

The national government’s impotence was on full display. The Confederation Congress, aghast at the reports, tried to raise funds for a national army to quell the rebellion.

But unsurprisingly, the states didn’t cooperate with money or troops in time. In the end, it fell to the Massachusetts state militia, largely funded by wealthy Boston merchants, to disperse Shays’ rebels in early 1787.

The revolt was put down, but the lesson was searingly clear: the United States was on the brink of anarchy, unable to ensure law and order even within a single state. It was enough to finally pull George Washington out of his hope of retirement. He was a man not prone to hyperbole, but was profoundly shaken by how close the country had already come to the edge.

“We are fast verging to anarchy and confusion!” George Washington stated in late 1786 in a letter warning that the young nation could collapse from within.

Washington’s words captured the national mood. There was a creeping realization among many leaders that the system established after independence was falling apart. If something was not done, the country they had fought to create might dissolve into squabbling fragments, or collapse under the weight of its own unruly freedom.

Some even whispered the unthinkable: perhaps a return to monarchy, maybe a homegrown king, would be better than this chaos. Washington himself noted in disbelief that “respectable characters speak of a monarchical government without horror.”

It was a shocking turnaround for a republic born in opposition to kings. But such was the depth of the crisis: people were beginning to think any order might be better than no order at all.

For others, the answer was not to give up on the revolutionary ideals, but to strengthen the framework holding those ideals together. The phrase “a more perfect union” had not been coined yet, but that was exactly what folks like Madison, Hamilton, and an aging Benjamin Franklin were starting to push for.

The events of the 1780s had proven that independence alone was not enough; without an effective government, liberty and independence could self destruct.

The United States had won the war, but now it was losing the peace.

VI. The Urgent Call for Change

By early 1787, the urgency for a fix reached its peak. In fact, even before Shays’ Rebellion, some of the brighter minds had attempted baby steps toward reform.

In 1785, delegates from Virginia and Maryland met at Washington’s Mount Vernon to sort out a trade dispute, a small success that inspired a broader meeting.

In 1786, the Annapolis Convention was held with the idea of discussing commercial problems and amending the Articles. It was poorly attended (only five states showed up), but those who did attend, including Madison and Hamilton, agreed on a recommendation: call another convention in Philadelphia, this time inviting all thirteen states, to tackle not just trade but the whole structure of government.

This was a bold move, publicly asking for permission to overhaul the nation’s political system. It was as if the country’s operating software needed a critical update or it would crash, yet most people still did not want to acknowledge its necessity.

Initially, the idea was to revise the Articles of Confederation. But many, like Hamilton, had bigger ambitions; they wanted to replace the Articles entirely if that’s what it took. The Confederation Congress, limping along, gave its blessing in February 1787 for a convention “for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles.”

Privately, a lot of leaders thought revision would not cut it; the Articles had to be scrapped, and a new Constitution written. But to avoid spooking the skeptics, they framed it as just a revision meeting. In truth, it turned out to be more like a peaceful revolution in Philadelphia that summer.

As the date for the Constitutional Convention drew near, the sense of last chance urgency was palpable. Pamphlets and letters flew back and forth with arguments on all sides.

Would this convention save the union, or was it a Trojan horse for tyranny?

Even Washington, who had been reluctant to leave his retirement, decided to attend, lending his gravitas to the gathering. He had concluded that without a change, “the superstructure we have been seven years raising at the expense of so much blood and treasure, must fall.”

In other words, everything they fought for in the Revolution was at risk of collapsing if they did not build a stronger foundation.

VII. To Be Continued…

As we close this first episode, let’s recap the precarious scene: The United States, in the years after gaining independence, was like a ship adrift. The sails of liberty had been hoisted triumphantly in 1776, but by 1787 the ship was leaking, the crew was mutinous, and there was no captain at the helm.

Far from solving all problems, independence had laid bare “the inheritance problem” America had inherited a deep fear of centralized power and a host of structural weaknesses that made it nearly impossible to act as one nation.

The result was a country on the verge of disintegration, proving that a successful revolution was only half the story. The other half would be how to govern and unite thereafter.

The stage was set for some of the greatest political debates in history. The fragile American experiment needed a rescue, and fast. In the next volume of “The Constitutionalist Guide” we’ll journey to Philadelphia in that fateful summer of 1787.

There, against a backdrop of sweltering heat, secrecy, and clashing ideas, a group of determined delegates would attempt to hammer out a new constitution, a plan to rescue the union from the brink and create a government strong enough to hold the states together, yet constrained enough to preserve liberty.

The clock was ticking for the fledgling United States. Stay tuned for Volume 2, where we witness the opening of the Constitutional Convention – a high stakes meeting that would prove that this nation, conceived in liberty, could indeed be rebuilt in argument. The survival of the American dream was on the line, and it all came down to what happened in that Philadelphia statehouse…

Prepare for a fight not against a foreign king, but amongst founders themselves, as the Constitution was forged in argument.