Essay Sample on Shays’ Rebellion

There was lots of chaos and confusion as the colonies were uniting and becoming independent. Shays’ rebellion showed everyone how weak the government was under the Articles of Confederation after the people rebelled and got what they wanted. There were many important people needed to create the system of government that we have today. There was one man in particular who was crucial to the creation of our constitution. This man, James Madison, helped the colonies before, during, and after the convention, helping the colonies create the government that we continue to use today. 

Madison’s actions prior to the convention allowed the states to consider actually showing up. After the embarrassingly easy success of the people in Shays’ rebellion, Madison knew something needed to be done to give the government more power, so that they could control its own people. However, the first attempt failed with only five states showing up, so hamilton suggested waiting a year. During this time Madison made an effort to make the second attempt more successful. James Madison went to the one man that everyone in the colonies looks up to and respects and asked him, George Washington, to go to the convention. Washington agreed to come to watch over which will positively influence the outcome of the convention. The states understand the convention must be important if GW will be there. Without James Madison convincing GW to go to the convention, they might not have had the needed cooperation from the states in order to bring order to the colonies.

During the convention, Madison helped represent the big states by creating the Virginia Plan. Even though his plan was not what was used for the final draft of the constitution, it was a big help with getting the convention going. Madison’s plan wanted to use proportional representation based on the population since his plan mainly supported the ideas of the big states. Although the smaller states disagreed with many ideas on the plan, it forced them to write up a plan. Without James Madison writing his Virginia Plan for the big states, there would be no plan for the smaller states. Since they both had plans, Roger Sherman was able to help create a compromise. Madison’s Virginia Plan contributed to the compromise, and without him, the convention could have been too chaotic with all the disagreeing.

James Madison took intense notes on the convention in order for people in the future to see what happened at the convention after everyone dies. Madison took a seat near the front in the convention and intensely took notes on what everyone said. He wrote what everyone said word for word in abbreviations that he made up and after the convention, he translated all of his names into normal words so now everyone in the future would know what went down at the convention. This is important because now we have important information that without Madison, we wouldn't have had. Instead of this extremely important event in our history being a mystery, historians are able to understand how our government came to be. This can allow people now to better understand our government system, all thanks to James Madison. 

James Maddison had a large positive effect on the before, during, and after the convention which allowed our government to become what it is today. This is due to his strategic planning, the ideas he put in during the convention, and his planning for future generations to understand the convention. Everything that Madison did shows how governments can be created through compromise, structure, and cooperation of the citizens and states.