Shays' Rebellion

Shays' Rebellion — a farmers' uprising in Massachusetts — terrified the elite. The federal government couldn't even afford to send troops. Washington wrote that the country was on the verge of "anarchy and confusion." Something had to change, fast.

The first capital was not Washington DC — it was New York (1789), then Philadelphia (1790-1800). Washington DC was chosen partly as a Southern concession to avoid placing the federal government in an abolitionist Northern city. Geography was politics from the first minute of the republic.

The compromise revealed how deeply slavery shaped every decision the young nation made.