The Article of Confederation made *laws almost impossible to pass* due to the lack of federal government power. The government also *lacked power to collect taxes* which left the government without money to pay off taxes.
There are several important constitutional issues at the start of Reconstruction, but perhaps the greatest was if the newly freed slaves could be counted as citizens.
The stock market crash of 1929; the collapse of world trade due to the Smoot-Hawley Tariff (Hawley, it was signed by President Herbert Hoover on June 17, 1930. The act raised US tariffs on over 20,000 imported goods. The tariffs under the act, excluding duty-free imports were the second highest in United States history, exceeded by only the Tariff of 1828), government policies; bank failures and panics; and the collapse of the money supply.
