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The Stamp Act
The Stamp Act was the first British parliamentary attempt to raise revenue through direct taxation on a wide variety of colonial transactions, including legal writs, newspaper advertisements, and ships’ bills of lading. Enraged colonists nullified the Stamp Act through outright refusal to use the stamps as well as by riots, stamp burning, and intimidation of colonial stamp distributors. -
The Townshend Act
In lieu of the stamp act being so opposed by the colonists the new tax was quickly withdrawn, but its repeal was soon followed by a series of other tax acts, such as the Townshend Acts (1767), which imposed taxes on many everyday objects such as glass, tea, and paint. The Massachusetts legislature sent a petition to the king asking for relief from the taxes and requested that other colonies join in a boycott of British manufactured goods -
Boston Massacre
British officials threatened to suspend the legislatures of colonies that engaged in a boycott of the Townshend Acts. In response to a request for help from Boston’s customs collector, Britain sent a warship. A few months later, British troops arrived, and on the evening of March 5, 1770, an altercation erupted outside the customs house. Shots rang out as the soldiers fired into the crowd.Several people were hit; three died immediately. This event would be known as the Boston massacre -
The Boston Tea Party
In December 1773, a group of Boston men boarded a ship in Boston harbor and threw its cargo of tea, owned by the British East India Company, into the water to protest British policies, including the granting of a monopoly on tea to the British East India Company, which many colonial merchants resented. -
The Declaration of Independence
On July 2, 1776, Congress declared American independence from Britain and two days later signed the Declaration of Independence. -
The Articles of Confederation
The final draft of the Articles of Confederation, which formed the basis of the new nation’s government, was accepted by Congress in November 1777 and submitted to the states for ratification. Each state had a governor and an elected legislature. In the new nation, the states remained free to govern their residents as they wished. The central government had authority to act in only a few areas, such as national defense. -
Shay's Rebellion
In the summer of 1786 Daniel Shay led a rebellion in Massachusetts. The rebellion occurred because farmers owed taxes that had gone unpaid while they were away fighting the British during the Revolution. The Continental Congress had promised to pay them for their service, but the national government did not have sufficient money.The farmers marched to a local courthouse demanding relief. This is when the members of Congress called for a revision of the Articles of Confederation. -
Constitutional Convention
55 delegates arrived in Philadelphia in 1787 for the Constitutional Convention, the hope was to strengthen the authority of the national government, preserve autonomy, without preventing the states from working together or making them independent of the will of the national government. They sought to protect the rights of individuals from government abuse, and they wanted to create a society in which concerns for law and order did not give way in the face of demands for individual liberty. -
The Ratification Process
Article VII, the final article of the Constitution, required that before the Constitution could become law and a new government could form, the document had to be ratified by nine of the thirteen states. Eleven days after the delegates at the Philadelphia convention approved it, copies of the Constitution were sent to each of the states, which were to hold ratifying conventions to either accept or reject it. -
The Ratification Campaign
On the question of ratification, citizens quickly separated into two groups: Federalists and Anti-Federalists. The Federalists supported it. Anti-Federalists objected to the power the Constitution gave the federal government and the absence of a bill of rights to protect individual liberties. The Federalists countered that a strong government was necessary to lead the new nation and promised to add a bill of rights to the Constitution -
Voting to approve the Constitution
The delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia voted to approve the document they had drafted over the course of many months. Some did not support it, but the majority did. Before it could become the law of the land, however, the Constitution faced another hurdle, as it had to be ratified by the states. -
The Constitution is approved
In June 1788, New Hampshire became the ninth state to approve the Constitution, making it the law of the land. The large and prosperous states of Virginia and New York followed shortly thereafter, and the remaining states joined as well.
