This is an I-Heart podcast.

Guaranteed Human.

And we return to our American stories.

Up next, another installment of our series about us, The Story of America, with Dr. Bill McClay, author of Land of Hope, and the terrific Young Readers edition.

After gaining our independence, we operated under a document called The Articles of Confederation, but it wasn't working out.

So a group of men decided to look into the situation in Philadelphia.

Let's get into the story.

Here's Bill McLeigh.

The Spanish had control of the Mississippi River.

The British needed to be moved out.

The American patriot soldiers were often not paid

particularly toward the end of the war in actual cash, but through extensions of credit. They were

having their land taken away from them. Through foreclosures being executed by bankers who

didn't go to war.

This is a situation that is just tailor-made for high degree of tension, high degree of

social tension, and possible revolutionary or rebellious sentiment.

And there were pockets of rebellion.

There was a particularly notable rebellion in western Massachusetts where a war hero named Daniel Shays led a march to shut down the Supreme Court

raid the arsenal in Springfield.

And that was put down,

but it seemed to be a harbinger of things to come.

George Washington himself was particularly alarmed by Shea's rebellion

...