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weak the system was. A few months after the Annapolis meeting, economically depressed farmers in Massachusetts, led by 39-year-old Daniel Shays, rose up and demanded relief from debt. Shays’s Rebellion spread to other states and included as many as 9,000 farmers. Congress was unable to raise a force to respond to this civil unrest, which finally had to be put down by the state militia. People were now frightened that an uprising like this could occur again. This event probably contributed to the much higher attendance at the 1787 Constitutional Convention.

Learn more about Shays’s Rebellion.

A lot of responsibility rested on James Madison’s shoulders, and he rose to the occasion. In later years, he was called “the Father of the Constitution.” One question loomed large: How was a group of men (women were excluded from politics) representing 12 different states ever going to agree on paper about how to govern a country filled with people who had come to treasure their individ- ual freedom? A new constitution seemed even more unlikely when, once the changes had been written down, the delegates insisted on a unanimous vote. Everyone knew it had taken five years to ratify the Articles of Confederation, which had been drawn up during the last two years of the war, and even after they were approved, major issues remained unresolved. Now that the time had come to unify the country more solidly, the colonists were beginning to behave with jealousy and fear. The first thing the delegates did was to elect George Washington as president of the convention. Washington was an imposing man and greatly admired because of his role in the American Revolution, which had ended four years earlier. After the war, he shocked everyone when he did not use his reputation and power to his own advantage, but instead resigned his military commission and went back to his estate, Mount Vernon. He cut a grand figure both on horseback and in the convention’s meeting room. The room in which the delegates met was only 40 square feet (12.2 square meters), and it was stifling, especially for the Yankees, who wore wool clothing. The

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THE CONSTITUTION