From Articles to Constitution

The United States almost collapsed right after the Revolution because our first government

was a total joke. We were so scared of having another King that we created the Articles of

Confederation, which gave the central government zero power. They couldn't tax

anyone, couldn't pay soldiers, and couldn't even settle fights between states.

It got so bad that a farmer named Daniel Shays led an armed rebellion in Massachusetts just to stop courts

from taking people's land. The government was too weak to actually help or stop the

chaos. That panic is exactly why we scrapped the whole thing and wrote the Constitution.