an essay about articles of confederation

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Articles of Confederation

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Articles of Confederation , first U.S. constitution (1781–89), which served as a bridge between the initial government by the Continental Congress of the Revolutionary period and the federal government provided under the U.S. Constitution of 1787. Because the experience of overbearing British central authority was vivid in colonial minds, the drafters of the Articles deliberately established a confederation of sovereign states. The Articles were written in 1776–77 and adopted by the Congress on November 15, 1777. However, the document was not fully ratified by the states until March 1, 1781.

On paper, the Congress had power to regulate foreign affairs, war, and the postal service and to appoint military officers, control Indian affairs, borrow money, determine the value of coin, and issue bills of credit. In reality, however, the Articles gave the Congress no power to enforce its requests to the states for money or troops, and by the end of 1786 governmental effectiveness had broken down.

Nevertheless, some solid accomplishments had been achieved: certain state claims to western lands were settled, and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 established the fundamental pattern of evolving government in the territories north of the Ohio River . Equally important, the Confederation provided the new nation with instructive experience in self-government under a written document. In revealing their own weaknesses, the Articles paved the way for the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and the present form of U.S. government.

The Articles of Confederation — America’s First Constitution

March 1, 1781–1789

The Articles of Confederation was America's first constitution. It was in effect from March 1, 1781, to March 4, 1789, when it was replaced by the United States Constitution.

John Dickinson, a delegate from Delaware, was the principal author of the draft of the Articles of Confederation. Image Source: New York Public Library Digital Collections .

Articles of Confederation Summary

As the delegates to the Second Continental Congress were drafting the Declaration of Independence , they were also developing a plan for unifying the 13 Colonies to defeat Great Britain. In the summer of 1776, a committee composed of one delegate from each colony drafted the Articles of Confederation — America’s first constitution. Although the document created a weak central government compared to the federal government established by the current Constitution, the Articles successfully created a “firm league of friendship” that guided the new nation through its early years.

Articles of Confederation Dates

• On June 11, 1776, the Second Continental Congress appointed a committee, composed of one representative from each colony, to draft a document forming a confederation of the 13 colonies.
• The Articles of Confederation were adopted by Congress on November 15, 1777.
• The Articles went into effect when they were ratified by the 13th and final state (Maryland) on March 1, 1781.
• In May 1787, following events such as Shays’ Rebellion, a convention was held in Philadelphia to revise the Articles. However, the convention resulted in the United States Constitution.
• The Articles were replaced by the Constitution on March 4, 1789.

Facts About the Articles of Confederation

• John Dickinson, a delegate from Delaware, was the principal writer of the draft document.
• As adopted, the articles contained a preamble and 13 articles.
• The Articles established a Confederation Congress with each state having one vote.
• Measures passed by Congress had to be approved by 9 of the 13 states.
• It did not establish federal executive or judicial branches of government.
• Each state retained “every Power…which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States.”
• Provided Congress with the powers to conduct foreign affairs, declare war or peace, maintain an army and navy, print money, resolve disputes between states, and a variety of other lesser functions.
• Denied Congress the power to collect taxes, regulate interstate commerce, and enforce laws.
• All 13 states had to agree to any amendment of the federal government’s power.

Articles of Confederation — A Brief History of America’s First Constitution

The Articles of Confederation outlined the functions of the first national government of the United States, after gaining independence from Great Britain. The Articles created a limited central government that, to a certain extent, restricted individual states from conducting their own foreign diplomacy.

Albany Plan of Union

Just before the outbreak of the French and Indian War, the Albany Plan of Union was developed It was the first attempt to unite the colonies from New England to South Carolina. However, the plan was rejected for various reasons, including concerns the individual colonies had about granting authority to a central colonial government. 

However, as the American Revolution progressed and became the American Revolutionary War, many leaders recognized the benefits of a centralized government to coordinate the war effort. 

New York’s Plan of Unification

In June 1775, the First New York Provincial Congress submitted a proposal for a united government to the Continental Congress. Like the Albany Plan, New York’s “Plan of Accommodation between Great Britain and America” acknowledged the authority of the British Crown, which was unpopular with the faction of Congress that leaned toward independence. 

Benjamin Franklin’s Articles of Confederation

Outside of the proceedings of Congress, some delegates explored the idea of a permanent union between the colonies, other than the temporary Continental Congress. 

Benjamin Franklin drafted a plan titled “Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union.” Although key delegates such as Thomas Jefferson endorsed Franklin’s proposal, it faced opposition. Franklin introduced his plan to Congress on July 21, emphasizing it should be considered a draft, which should be revised at a later date. The delegates agreed and decided to set the plan aside at that time.

Congress Agrees on Independence

Ultimately, Congress adopted Virginia’s “Resolution for Independence,” which was introduced by Richard Henry Lee on June 7, 1775. Also known as the “Lee Resolution,” it proposed three important initiatives:

• Called for Congress to declare independence.
• Form foreign alliances.
• Prepare a plan to unite the colonies.

The Committee of Thirteen

On June 11, Congress set up three committees — one for each of the initiatives. The committee assigned to “prepare a plan to unite the colonies” is known as the “Committee of Thirteen.” It included one delegate from each state:

• John Dickinson, Pennsylvania, Chairman
• Samuel Adams, Massachusetts
• Josiah Bartlett, New Hampshire
• Button Gwinnett, Georgia
• Joseph Hewes, North Carolina
• Stephen Hopkins, Rhode Island
• Robert R. Livingston, New York
• Thomas McKean, Delaware
• Thomas Nelson, Virginia
• Edward Rutledge, South Carolina
• Roger Sherman, Connecticut
• Thomas Stone, Maryland
• Francis Hopkinson, New Jersey

The Committee Introduces the Articles of Confederation

On July 22, the committee presented its report to Congress. The Articles included. 

• A government consisting solely of a unicameral legislature without an executive or judicial branch.
• It would have limited powers to deal with foreign affairs, defense, and treaty-making.
• The government did not have the authority to levy national taxes or regulate interstate trade. 
• Any laws it created were nonbinding unless states chose to enforce them. 

The Articles were intended to balance the political ideas embraced in the American Revolution, such as “No Taxation Without Representation” and the necessity of conducting the war. However, there were significant issues that needed to be addressed, including:

• Representation. The issue was resolved by giving all states equal status and one vote.
• Appropriation. This was settled by having states contribute money to Congress based on the value of privately owned land. 
• Control of western lands. Some states, like Virginia, claimed large territories that stretched across the frontier, to the west. Others, like Maryland, had no claims and insisted that such territories should be ceded to Congress beforehand. This issue was not resolved until much later.

The issues postponed the final debates on the Articles of Confederation until October 1777.

Congress Agrees to the Articles of Confederation

By October 1777, the situation was urgent, as British forces had captured Philadephia in September, forcing the members of Congress to flee to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and then to York, Pennsylvania. On November 15, 1777, During the sessions in York, the delegates finally agreed to a framework for the Articles of Confederation. 

Congress forwarded the Articles to the states for ratification in late November. While most delegates recognized the Articles as a flawed compromise, they believed it was preferable to having no formal national government at all.

12 States Ratify the Articles of Confederation

Virginia led the way by ratifying the Articles of Confederation on December 16, 1777. Subsequently, other states followed suit during the early months of 1778. However, when Congress reconvened in June 1778, it was revealed that Maryland, Delaware, and New Jersey had not succeeded in ratifying the Articles. 

The Articles required unanimous approval from all states, and the states that were holding out insisted the others needed to abandon their western land claims before they would ratify the document. 

Ultimately, with the war at a crucial point, the “landed” states — those with western land claims, like Virginia — indicated they would cede the lands. New Jersey and Delaware were satisfied and agreed to the terms of the Articles.

• New Jersey ratified the Articles on November 20, 1778.
• Delaware ratified the Articles on February 1, 1779. 

Maryland’s Path to Ratification

Maryland was not convinced the states would follow through on ceding lands and was the last holdout to ratify the Articles of Confederation.

Maryland’s reluctance was frustrating to the other state governments. Some even passed resolutions in favor of establishing a national government without Maryland. 

However, some politicians, like Congressman Thomas Burke of North Carolina, argued against such a measure. Burke and others insisted that without the unanimous approval of all 13 States, the nation would be vulnerable, divided, and susceptible to foreign interference and manipulation.

In 1780, British forces carried out raids on Maryland towns located along the Chesapeake Bay, alarming state officials. Maryland responded by contacting the French Minister, Anne-César De la Luzerne, and requesting French naval support. Luzerne responded by encouraging Maryland to ratify the Articles of Confederation. 

Virginia’s Governor, Thomas Jefferson , also agreed to cede all western land claims to Congress.

Finally, the Maryland legislature ratified the Articles of Confederation on March 1, 1781. On that date, the Articles of Confederation formally transformed the United States from a collection of 13 loosely connected states into a confederation government

Weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation

Unfortunately, the Articles did not grant Congress the necessary authority to force the states to comply with its decisions, including the provisions in the 1783 Treaty of Paris .

The Treaty of Paris allowed British creditors to sue debtors for pre-Revolutionary debts, a clause many state governments simply ignored. In response, British forces continued to occupy forts in the Great Lakes Region. 

Additional issues that were caused by the weakness of the Articles of Confederation included:

• Without the ability to raise funds, the Confederation Congress was financially limited and dependent on the states for revenue, and the States often failed to provide funds.
• States also disregarded laws meant to standardize interstate commerce. 
• Congress did not have the power to regulate foreign trade, allowing nations like Britain to impose trade restrictions without fear of retaliation. 
• Congress had no way to force states to provide military forces during a time when the military was needed to deal with Indian unrest in the Northwest Territory .

Similar issues, along with the Confederation government’s inadequate response to Shays’ Rebellion in Massachusetts, convinced national leaders of the need to make changes to the Articles of Confederation. This ultimately led to the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 , which drafted the Constitution of the United States.

Accomplishments Under the Articles of Confederation

Despite its limited authority, the Confederation Congress was able to accomplish some important feats that led to the growth and development of the nation.

1783 Treaty of Paris

The 1783 Treaty of Paris was one of a series of treaties, collectively known as the Peace of Paris, or the Treaty of Versailles of 1783, that established peace between Great Britain and the allied nations of France, Spain, and the Netherlands. The Treaty of Paris was negotiated as a separate treaty between Great Britain and the United States, the primary provisions of the Treaty of Paris established the independence of the United States and ended hostilities between the two nations. Other provisions dealt with defining borders, restitution for Loyalist property confiscated by Americans during the war, the return of slaves confiscated by the British, and the removal of British troops from American soil. Congress ratified the treaty on January 14, 1784.

Ordinance of 1784

The Ordinance of 1784 was a bill passed by the Congress of the Confederation that served as an initial blueprint for governing the territory Britain ceded to the United States after the American Revolutionary War.

Land Ordinance of 1785

The Land Ordinance of 1785 was a bill passed by the Congress of the Confederation. It made adjustments to the Ordinance of 1784 and introduced squares. If first divided the land into six-mile-square townships. It also required the land to be surveyed and for some of it to be given to veterans of the Continental Army.

Northwest Ordinance of 1787

The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 , also known as the Ordinance of 1787, set up the rules and guidelines for governing the Northwest Territory, including a bill of rights and prohibition of slavery. It also set up the process for a territory to become a state and join the Union, with equal status to the 13 Original States.

Presidents Under the Articles of Confederation

The following men served as President from 1781 to 1789 under the Articles of Confederation. The position was officially called “President of the United States in Congress Assembled.” 

Contrary to some sources, these men did not hold the office of President of the United States. It was an entirely different office. 

• Samuel Huntington served from March 2, 1781, to July 6, 1781, when he retired.
• Thomas McKean served from July 10, 1781, to October 23, 1781. During his term as President, Congress received the news of the British surrender at Yorktown .
• John Hanson was the first President to serve a full term and served from November 5, 1781, to November 3, 1782. Hanson is sometimes referred to as the first President of the Confederation Congress. However, he is recognized as the third President by the Office of the Historian of the United States House of Representatives.
• Elias Boudinot was President from November 4, 1782, to November 3, 1783. During his term, the British evacuated Charleston in January 1783, and the Treaty of Paris of 1783 was signed in September 1783, which officially ended the American Revolutionary War.
• Thomas Mifflin was President from November 3, 1783, to November 30, 1784. During his term, George Washington resigned from the army. On December 23, 1783, in a ceremony in Annapolis, Maryland, Washington handed his commission and resignation speech to Mifflin.
• Richard Henry Lee served from November 30, 1784, to November 4, 1785.
• John Hancock was appointed President and held the title from November 23, 1785, to June 6, 1786. However, Hancock was ill and he could not perform the duties of the office. His duties were carried out by David Ramsay from November 23, 1785, to May 15, 1786, and then by Nathaniel Gorham from May 15 to June 5, 1786. Ramsay and Gorham were Chairman of the Confederation Congress.
• Nathaniel Gorham served as President from June 6, 1786, to November 2, 1786.
• Arthur St. Clair served as President and served from February 2, 1787, to October 5, 1787.
• Cyrus Griffin was the last President of the Congress Assembled and served from January 22, 1788, to March 2, 1789.

Articles of Confederation Significance

The Articles of Confederation are important to United States history because they served as the first Consitution of the United States. Although the Articles had many weaknesses, the Confederation Congress was able to make some key legislative decisions that helped the nation develop. Ultimately, the lessons learned during the time the nation operated under the Articles helped develop its replacement, the United States Constitution.

Articles of Confederation APUSH, Review, Notes, Study Guide

Use the following links and videos to study the Articles of Confederation, the Confederation Congress, and the Confederation Era for the AP US History Exam. Also, be sure to look at our Guide to the AP US History Exam .

Articles of Confederation Definition APUSH

The Articles of Confederation is defined as the first written constitution of the United States, adopted in 1781. The articles established a weak federal government with limited powers, with most decision-making power reserved for the individual states. The articles were in effect until 1789 when they were replaced by the United States Constitution.

Articles of Confederation Video — Explained for APUSH and AP Gov

This video from Heimler’s History discusses the Articles of Confederation, one of the Foundational Documents for APUSH and AP Gov.

• Written by Randal Rust

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Articles of Confederation

By: History.com Editors

Updated: August 15, 2023 | Original: October 27, 2009

The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union was the first written constitution of the United States. Written in 1777 and stemming from wartime urgency, its progress was slowed by fears of central authority and extensive land claims by states. It was not ratified until March 1, 1781. 

Under these articles, the states remained sovereign and independent, with Congress serving as the last resort on appeal of disputes. Significantly, The Articles of Confederation named the new nation “The United States of America.”

Congress was given the authority to make treaties and alliances, maintain armed forces and coin money. However, the central government lacked the ability to levy taxes and regulate commerce, issues that led to the Constitutional Convention in 1787 for the creation of new federal laws under The United States Constitution.

From the beginning of the American Revolution , Congress felt the need for a stronger union and a government powerful enough to defeat Great Britain. During the early years of the war this desire became a belief that the new nation must have a constitutional order appropriate to its republican character. 

A fear of central authority inhibited the creation of such a government, and widely shared political theory held that a republic could not adequately serve a large nation such as the United States. The legislators of a large republic would be unable to remain in touch with the people they represented, and the republic would inevitably degenerate into a tyranny.

To many Americans, their union seemed to be simply a league of confederated states, and their Congress a diplomatic assemblage representing 13 independent polities. The impetus for an effective central government lay in wartime urgency, the need for foreign recognition and aid and the growth of national feeling.

Who Wrote the Articles of Confederation?

Altogether, six drafts of the Articles were prepared before Congress settled on a final version in 1777. Benjamin Franklin wrote the first and presented it to Congress in July 1775. It was never formally considered. Later in the year Silas Deane, a delegate from Connecticut, offered one of his own, which was followed still later by a draft from the Connecticut delegation, probably a revision of Deane’s.

None of these drafts contributed significantly to the fourth version written by John Dickinson of Pennsylvania, the text that after much revision provided the basis for the Articles approved by Congress. Dickinson prepared his draft in June 1776; it was revised by a committee of Congress and discussed in late July and August. The result, the third version of Dickinson’s original, was printed to enable Congress to consider it further. In November 1777 the final Articles, much altered by this long deliberative process, were approved for submission to the states.

Ratification of the Articles of Confederation 

By 1779 all the states had approved the Articles of Confederation except Maryland, but the prospects for acceptance looked bleak because claims to western lands by other states set Maryland in inflexible opposition. Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, Connecticut and Massachusetts claimed by their charters to extend to the “South Sea” or the Mississippi River. 

The charters of Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and Rhode Island confined those states to a few hundred miles of the Atlantic. Land speculators in Maryland and these other “landless states” insisted that the West belonged to the United States, and they urged Congress to honor their claims to western lands. Maryland also supported the demands because nearby Virginia would clearly dominate its neighbor should its claims be accepted. 

Eventually Thomas Jefferson persuaded his state to yield its claims to the West, provided that the speculators’ demands were rejected and the West was divided into new states, which would be admitted into the Union on the basis of equality with the old. Virginia’s action persuaded Maryland to ratify the Articles, which went into effect on March 1, 1781.

Weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation

The weakness of the Articles of Confederation was that Congress was not strong enough to enforce laws or raise taxes, making it difficult for the new nation to repay their debts from the Revolutionary War. There was no executive and no judiciary, two of the three branches of government we have today to act as a system of checks and balances. Additionally, there were several issues between states that were not settled with ratification: A disagreement over the appointment of taxes forecast the division over slavery in the Constitutional Convention. 

Dickinson’s draft required the states to provide money to Congress in proportion to the number of their inhabitants, black and white, except Indians not paying taxes. With large numbers of slaves, the southern states opposed this requirement, arguing that taxes should be based on the number of white inhabitants. This failed to pass, but eventually the southerners had their way as Congress decided that each state’s contribution should rest on the value of its lands and improvements. In the middle of the war, Congress had little time and less desire to take action on such matters as the slave trade and fugitive slaves, both issues receiving much attention in the Constitutional Convention.

Article III described the confederation as “a firm league of friendship” of states “for their common defense, the security of their liberties and their mutual and general welfare.” This league would have a unicameral congress as the central institution of government; as in the past, each state had one vote, and delegates were elected by state legislatures. Under the Articles, each state retained its “sovereignty, freedom and independence.” The old weakness of the First and Second Continental Congresses remained: the new Congress could not levy taxes, nor could it regulate commerce. Its revenue would come from the states, each contributing according to the value of privately owned land within its borders.

But Congress would exercise considerable powers: it was given jurisdiction over foreign relations with the authority to make treaties and alliances; it could make war and peace, maintain an army and navy, coin money, establish a postal service and manage Indian affairs; it could establish admiralty courts and it would serve as the last resort on appeal of disputes between the states. Decisions on certain specified matters–making war, entering treaties, regulating coinage, for example–required the assent of nine states in Congress, and all others required a majority.

Although the states remained sovereign and independent, no state was to impose restrictions on the trade or the movement of citizens of another state not imposed on its own. The Articles also required each state to extend “full faith and credit” to the judicial proceedings of the others. And the free inhabitants of each state were to enjoy the “privileges and immunities of free citizens” of the others. Movement across state lines was not to be restricted.

To amend the Articles, the legislatures of all thirteen states would have to agree. This provision, like many in the Articles, indicated that powerful provincial loyalties and suspicions of central authority persisted. In the 1780s–the so-called Critical Period–state actions powerfully affected politics and economic life. 

For the most part, business prospered and the economy grew. Expansion into the West proceeded and population increased. National problems persisted, however, as American merchants were barred from the British West Indies and the British army continued to hold posts in the Old Northwest, which was named American territory under the Treaty of Paris . 

These circumstances contributed to a sense that constitutional revision was imperative. Still, national feeling grew slowly in the 1780s, although major efforts to amend the Articles in order to give Congress the power to tax failed in 1781 and 1786. The year after the failure of 1786, the Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia and effectively closed the history of government under the Articles of Confederation.

The Articles of Confederation Text

To all to whom these Presents shall come, we the undersigned Delegates of the States affixed to our Names send greeting.

Whereas the Delegates of the United States of America in Congress assembled did on the fifteenth day of November in the Year of our Lord One Thousand Seven Hundred and Seventy seven, and in the Second Year of the Independence of America, agree to certain articles of Confederation and perpetual Union between the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts-bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, in the words following, viz:

Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union between the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts-bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.

Thirteen Articles:

The Stile of this confederacy shall be "The United States of America."

Article II.

Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every Power, Jurisdiction and right, which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled.

Article III.

The said states hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other, for their common defence, the security of their Liberties and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other, against all force offered to, or attacks made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretence whatever.

Article IV.

The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse among the people of the different states in this union, the free inhabitants of each of these states, paupers, vagabonds and fugitives from justice excepted, shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several states; and the people of each state shall have free ingress and regress to and from any other state, and shall enjoy therein all the privileges of trade and commerce, subject to the same duties impositions and restrictions as the inhabitants thereof respectively, provided that such restriction shall not extend so far as to prevent the removal of property imported into any state, to any other state, of which the Owner is an inhabitant; provided also that no imposition, duties or restriction shall be laid by any state, on the property of the united states, or either of them. If any Person guilty of, or charged with treason, felony, — or other high misdemeanor in any state, shall flee from Justice, and be found in any of the united states, he shall, upon demand of the Governor or executive power, of the state from which he fled, be delivered up and removed to the state having jurisdiction of his offense. Full faith and credit shall be given in each of these states to the records, acts and judicial proceedings of the courts and magistrates of every other state.

For the more convenient management of the general interests of the united states, delegates shall be annually appointed in such manner as the legislature of each state shall direct, to meet in Congress on the first Monday in November, in every year, with a power reserved to each state, to recal its delegates, or any of them, at any time within the year, and to send others in their stead, for the remainder of the Year.

No state shall be represented in Congress by less than two, nor by more than seven Members; and no person shall be capable of being a delegate for more than three years in any term of six years; nor shall any person, being a delegate, be capable of holding any office under the united states, for which he, or another for his benefit receives any salary, fees or emolument of any kind.

Each state shall maintain its own delegates in a meeting of the states, and while they act as members of the committee of the states. In determining questions in the united states in Congress assembled, each state shall have one vote.

Freedom of speech and debate in Congress shall not be impeached or questioned in any Court, or place out of Congress, and the members of congress shall be protected in their persons from arrests and imprisonments, during the time of their going to and from, and attendance on congress, except for treason, felony, or breach of the peace.

Article VI.

No state, without the Consent of the united states in congress assembled, shall send any embassy to, or receive any embassy from, or enter into any conference agreement, alliance or treaty with any King prince or state; nor shall any person holding any office of profit or trust under the united states, or any of them, accept of any present, emolument, office or title of any kind whatever from any king, prince or foreign state; nor shall the united states in congress assembled, or any of them, grant any title of nobility.

No two or more states shall enter into any treaty, confederation or alliance whatever between them, without the consent of the united states in congress assembled, specifying accurately the purposes for which the same is to be entered into, and how long it shall continue.

No state shall lay any imposts or duties, which may interfere with any stipulations in treaties, entered into by the united states in congress assembled, with any king, prince or state, in pursuance of any treaties already proposed by congress, to the courts of France and Spain.

No vessels of war shall be kept up in time of peace by any state, except such number only, as shall be deemed necessary by the united states in congress assembled, for the defence of such state, or its trade; nor shall any body of forces be kept up by any state, in time of peace, except such number only, as in the judgment of the united states, in congress assembled, shall be deemed requisite to garrison the forts necessary for the defence of such state; but every state shall always keep up a well regulated and disciplined militia, sufficiently armed and accoutered, and shall provide and constantly have ready for use, in public stores, a due number of field pieces and tents, and a proper quantity of arms, ammunition and camp equipage. No state shall engage in any war without the consent of the united states in congress assembled, unless such state be actually invaded by enemies, or shall have received certain advice of a resolution being formed by some nation of Indians to invade such state, and the danger is so imminent as not to admit of a delay till the united states in congress assembled can be consulted: nor shall any state grant commissions to any ships or vessels of war, nor letters of marque or reprisal, except it be after a declaration of war by the united states in congress assembled, and then only against the kingdom or state and the subjects thereof, against which war has been so declared, and under such regulations as shall be established by the united states in congress assembled, unless such state be infested by pirates, in which case vessels of war may be fitted out for that occasion, and kept so long as the danger shall continue, or until the united states in congress assembled, shall determine otherwise.

Article VII.

When land-forces are raised by any state for the common defence, all officers of or under the rank of colonel, shall be appointed by the legislature of each state respectively, by whom such forces shall be raised, or in such manner as such state shall direct, and all vacancies shall be filled up by the State which first made the appointment.

Article VIII.

All charges of war, and all other expences that shall be incurred for the common defence or general welfare, and allowed by the united states in congress assembled, shall be defrayed out of a common treasury, which shall be supplied by the several states in proportion to the value of all land within each state, granted to or surveyed for any Person, as such land and the buildings and improvements thereon shall be estimated according to such mode as the united states in congress assembled, shall from time to time direct and appoint.

The taxes for paying that proportion shall be laid and levied by the authority and direction of the legislatures of the several states within the time agreed upon by the united states in congress assembled.

Article IX.

The united states in congress assembled, shall have the sole and exclusive right and power of determining on peace and war, except in the cases mentioned in the sixth article — of sending and receiving ambassadors — entering into treaties and alliances, provided that no treaty of commerce shall be made whereby the legislative power of the respective states shall be restrained from imposing such imposts and duties on foreigners as their own people are subjected to, or from prohibiting the exportation or importation of any species of goods or commodities, whatsoever — of establishing rules for deciding in all cases, what captures on land or water shall be legal, and in what manner prizes taken by land or naval forces in the service of the united states shall be divided or appropriated — of granting letters of marque and reprisal in times of peace — appointing courts for the trial of piracies and felonies committed on the high seas and establishing courts for receiving and determining finally appeals in all cases of captures, provided that no member of congress shall be appointed a judge of any of the said courts.

The united states in congress assembled shall also be the last resort on appeal in all disputes and differences now subsisting or that hereafter may arise between two or more states concerning boundary, jurisdiction or any other cause whatever; which authority shall always be exercised in the manner following. Whenever the legislative or executive authority or lawful agent of any state in controversy with another shall present a petition to congress stating the matter in question and praying for a hearing, notice thereof shall be given by order of congress to the legislative or executive authority of the other state in controversy, and a day assigned for the appearance of the parties by their lawful agents, who shall then be directed to appoint by joint consent, commissioners or judges to constitute a court for hearing and determining the matter in question: but if they cannot agree, congress shall name three persons out of each of the united states, and from the list of such persons each party shall alternately strike out one, the petitioners beginning, until the number shall be reduced to thirteen; and from that number not less than seven, nor more than nine names as congress shall direct, shall in the presence of congress be drawn out by lot, and the persons whose names shall be so drawn or any five of them, shall be commissioners or judges, to hear and finally determine the controversy, so always as a major part of the judges who shall hear the cause shall agree in the determination: and if either party shall neglect to attend at the day appointed, without showing reasons, which congress shall judge sufficient, or being present shall refuse to strike, the congress shall proceed to nominate three persons out of each state, and the secretary of congress shall strike in behalf of such party absent or refusing; and the judgment and sentence of the court to be appointed, in the manner before prescribed, shall be final and conclusive; and if any of the parties shall refuse to submit to the authority of such court, or to appear or defend their claim or cause, the court shall nevertheless proceed to pronounce sentence, or judgment, which shall in like manner be final and decisive, the judgment or sentence and other proceedings being in either case transmitted to congress, and lodged among the acts of congress for the security of the parties concerned: provided that every commissioner, before he sits in judgment, shall take an oath to be administered by one of the judges of the supreme or superior court of the state, where the cause shall be tried, "well and truly to hear and determine the matter in question, according to the best of his judgment, without favour, affection or hope of reward:" provided also, that no state shall be deprived of territory for the benefit of the united states.

All controversies concerning the private right of soil claimed under different grants of two or more states, whose jurisdictions as they may respect such lands, and the states which passed such grants are adjusted, the said grants or either of them being at the same time claimed to have originated antecedent to such settlement of jurisdiction, shall on the petition of either party to the congress of the united states, be finally determined as near as may be in the same manner as is before prescribed for deciding disputes respecting territorial jurisdiction between different states.

The united states in congress assembled shall also have the sole and exclusive right and power of regulating the alloy and value of coin struck by their own authority, or by that of the respective states — fixing the standard of weights and measures throughout the united states — regulating the trade and managing all affairs with the Indians, not members of any of the states, provided that the legislative right of any state within its own limits be not infringed or violated — establishing or regulating post offices from one state to another, throughout all the united states, and exacting such postage on the papers passing thro' the same as may be requisite to defray the expences of the said office — appointing all officers of the land forces, in the service of the united states, excepting regimental officers — appointing all the officers of the naval forces, and commissioning all officers whatever in the service of the united states — making rules for the government and regulation of the said land and naval forces, and directing their operations.

The united states in congress assembled shall have authority to appoint a committee, to sit in the recess of congress, to be denominated "A Committee of the States," and to consist of one delegate from each state; and to appoint such other committees and civil officers as may be necessary for managing the general affairs of the united states under their direction — to appoint one of their number to preside, provided that no person be allowed to serve in the office of president more than one year in any term of three years; to ascertain the necessary sums of money to be raised for the service of the united states, and to appropriate and apply the same for defraying the public expences to borrow money, or emit bills on the credit of the united states, transmitting every half year to the respective states an account of the sums of money so borrowed or emitted, — to build and equip a navy — to agree upon the number of land forces, and to make requisitions from each state for its quota, in proportion to the number of white inhabitants in such state; which requisition shall be binding, and thereupon the legislature of each state shall appoint the regimental officers, raise the men and cloth, arm and equip them in a soldier like manner, at the expence of the united states; and the officers and men so cloathed, armed and quipped shall march to the place appointed, and within the time agreed on by the united states in congress assembled: But if the united states in congress assembled shall, on consideration of circumstances judge proper that any state should not raise men, or should raise a smaller number than its quota, and that any other state should raise a greater number of men than the quota thereof, such extra number shall be raised, officered, cloathed, armed and equipped in the same manner as the quota of such state, unless the legislature of such sta te shall judge that such extra number cannot be safely spared out of the same, in which case they shall raise officer, cloath, arm and equip as many of such extra number as they judge can be safely spared. And the officers and men so cloathed, armed and equipped, shall march to the place appointed, and within the time agreed on by the united states in congress assembled.

The united states in congress assembled shall never engage in a war, nor grant letters of marque and reprisal in time of peace, nor enter into any treaties or alliances, nor coin money, nor regulate the value thereof, nor ascertain the sums and expences necessary for the defence and welfare of the united states, or any of them, nor emit bills, nor borrow money on the credit of the united states, nor appropriate money, nor agree upon the number of vessels of war, to be built or purchased, or the number of land or sea forces to be raised, nor appoint a commander in chief of the army or navy, unless nine states assent to the same: nor shall a question on any other point, except for adjourning from day to day be determined, unless by the votes of a majority of the united states in congress assembled.

The congress of the united states shall have power to adjourn to any time within the year, and to any place within the united states, so that no period of adjournment be for a longer duration than the space of six Months, and shall publish the Journal of their proceedings monthly, except such parts thereof relating to treaties, alliances or military operations, as in their judgment require secrecy; and the yeas and nays of the delegates of each state on any question shall be entered on the Journal, when it is desired by any delegate; and the delegates of a state, or any of them, at his or their request shall be furnished with a transcript of the said Journal, except such parts as are above excepted, to lay before the legislatures of the several states.

The committee of the states, or any nine of them, shall be authorized to execute, in the recess of congress, such of the powers of congress as the united states in congress assembled, by the consent of nine states, shall from time to time think expedient to vest them with; provided that no power be delegated to the said committee, for the exercise of which, by the articles of confederation, the voice of nine states in the congress of the united states assembled is requisite.

Article XI.

Canada acceding to this confederation, and joining in the measures of the united states, shall be admitted into, and entitled to all the advantages of this union: but no other colony shall be admitted into the same, unless such admission be agreed to by nine states.

Article XII.

All bills of credit emitted, monies borrowed and debts contracted by, or under the authority of congress, before the assembling of the united states, in pursuance of the present confederation, shall be deemed and considered as a charge against the united states, for payment and satisfaction whereof the said united states, and the public faith are hereby solemnly pledged.

Article XIII.

Every state shall abide by the determinations of the united states in congress assembled, on all questions which by this confederation are submitted to them. And the Articles of this confederation shall be inviolably observed by every state, and the union shall be perpetual; nor shall any alteration at any time hereafter be made in any of them; unless such alteration be agreed to in a congress of the united states, and be afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of every state.

Conclusion:

And Whereas it hath pleased the Great Governor of the World to incline the hearts of the legislatures we respectively represent in congress, to approve of, and to authorize us to ratify the said articles of confederation and perpetual union. Know Ye that we the undersigned delegates, by virtue of the power and authority to us given for that pur pose, do by these presents, in the name and in behalf of our respective constituents, fully and entirely ratify and confirm each and every of the said articles of confederation and perpetual union, and all and singular the matters and things therein contained: And we do further solemnly plight and engage the faith of our respective constituents, that they shall abide by the determinations of the united states in congress assembled, on all questions, which by the said confederation are submitted to them. And that the articles thereof shall be inviolably observed by the states we respectively represent, and that the union shall be perpetual.

In Witness whereof we have hereunto set our hands in Congress. Done at Philadelphia in the state of Pennsylvania the ninth day of July in the Year of our Lord one Thousand seven Hundred and Seventy-eight, and in the third year of the independence of America.

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History Resources

The Articles of Confederation, 1777

A spotlight on a primary source by the second continental congress.

More of a treaty—or a "firm league of friendship"—than a constitution, the Articles of Confederation in no way infringed upon the sovereignty of the original thirteen states. Each state held "its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled." The Congress, the primary organ of the new national government, only had the power to declare war, appoint military officers, sign treaties, make alliances, appoint foreign ambassadors, and manage relations with the American Indians. All states were represented equally in Congress, and nine of the thirteen states had to approve a bill before it became law. Amendments required the approval of all the states.

The Articles of Confederation represented an attempt to balance the sovereignty of the states with an effective national government. Under the Articles, the states, not Congress, had the power to tax. Congress could raise money only by asking the states for funds, borrowing from foreign governments, and selling western lands. In addition, Congress could not draft soldiers or regulate trade. There was no provision for national courts or a chief executive.

Importantly, the Articles did not establish a genuinely republican government. Power was concentrated in a single assembly, rather than being divided, as in the state governments, into separate houses and branches. Further, members of the Confederation Congress were selected by state governments, not by the people.

The Articles served as the nation’s plan of government until the US Constitution was ratified in 1788.

A full transcript is available.

Of Confederation and perpetual Union between the States of New-Hampshire, Massachusetts-Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New-York, New-Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North-Carolina, South-Carolina and Georgia.

ARTICLE 1. The Stile of this confederacy shall be "The United States of America".

ART. II. Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled.

ART. III. The said states hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other, for their common defense, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other, against all force offered to, or attacks made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretense whatever.

ART. IV. The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse among the people of the different states in this union, the free inhabitants of each of these states, paupers, vagabonds, and fugitives from justice excepted, shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several states; and the people of each state shall have free ingress and regress to and from any other state, and shall enjoy therein all the privileges of trade and commerce, subject to the same duties, impositions, and restrictions as the inhabitants thereof respectively, provided that such restrictions shall not extend so far as to prevent the removal of property imported into any state, to any other state, of which the owner is an inhabitant; provided also that no imposition, duties or restriction shall be laid by any state, on the property of the united states, or either of them.

If any person guilty of, or charged with, treason, felony, or other high misdemeanor in any state, shall flee from justice, and be found in any of the united states, he shall, upon demand of the Governor or executive power of the state from which he fled, be delivered up and removed to the state having jurisdiction of his offense.

Full faith and credit shall be given in each of these states to the records, acts, and judicial proceedings of the courts and magistrates of every other state.

ART. V. For the more convenient management of the general interests of the united states, delegates shall be annually appointed in such manner as the legislature of each state shall direct, to meet in congress on the first Monday in November, in every year, with a power reserved to each state to recall its delegates, or any of them, at any time within the year, and to send others in their stead, for the remainder of the year. . . .

In determining questions in the united states in congress assembled, each state shall have one vote.

Freedom of speech and debate in congress shall not be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of congress, and the members of congress shall be protected in their persons from arrests or imprisonments, during the time of their going to and from, and attendence on congress, except for treason, felony, or breach of the peace. . . .

Questions for Discussion

Read the introduction and the document and apply your knowledge of American history in order to answer the following questions.

• Locate four provisions within the Articles of Confederation that indicate the concerns of the founding generation with the powers of a central government.
• How accurate is the following statement? The experience of having lived under a monarchy was largely responsible for the emphasis on sovereignty of the states under the Articles of Confederation.
• Critics of the Articles pointed out its weaknesses and shortcomings. Identify and explain four such areas in the Articles that were changed, altered, removed, or added in the Constitution.
• To what extent does the debate continue today over the power of the federal government? 

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The Articles of Confederation

The Second Continental Congress began laying the groundwork for an independent United States on June 11, 1776, when it passed resolutions appointing committees to draft the Articles of Confederation and the Declaration of Independence. The Articles resolution ordered “a committee to be appointed to prepare and digest the form of a confederation to be entered into between these colonies.” 1  John Dickinson, the chairman of the committee tasked with creating a confederation, worked with twelve other committee members to prepare draft articles. They presented their work to Congress on July 12, 1776, and the delegates began to debate the plan soon thereafter. Wary and conscious of repeated British intrusions on their civil and political rights since the early 1760s, the Articles’ framers carefully considered state sovereignty, the proposed national government’s specific powers, and the structure of each government branch as they wrote and debated their plan.  They sought to create a government subordinate to the states with power sufficiently checked to prevent the kind of infringements that Americans had experienced under British rule. Congress debated the Articles with these concerns in mind, and it approved the final draft of the Articles on November 15, 1777. Two days later, Congress sent it to the states for ratification. The Articles required unanimous consent from the thirteen states to take effect. Maryland became the final state to ratify the document on March 1, 1781.

The Articles of Confederation featured a preamble and thirteen articles that granted the bulk of power to the states. To some degree, it was a treaty of alliance between thirteen sovereign republics rather than the foundation for a national government. The preamble announced that the states were in a “perpetual union” with one another, but despite this seemingly stringent description, the Articles merely organized the states into a loose compact in which they mostly governed themselves. 2 The first article provided the new nation with its name: “the United States of America.” 3  The remaining articles detailed the states’ relationship with each other and with Congress. Article II provided that “each state retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence.” Article III, in which the states agreed to “enter into a firm league of friendship with each other,” did not negate an individual state’s sovereign status. 4  Article IV specified the rights of citizens within the several states, such as affording citizens the same privileges and immunities and allowing freedom of movement. Article IV also afforded full faith and credit to “the records, acts, and judicial proceedings of the courts and magistrates of every other state.” 5  Article V gave each state only one vote in Congress, ensuring the idea of equality among the states. Other articles discussed the powers granted to Congress, including the power to levy war, send and receive ambassadors, create treaties, grant letters of marque and reprisal, regulate the value of coin, and establish post offices. The final article, Article XIII, required unanimous ratification for all amendments. It also featured a supremacy clause obligating every state to follow the Articles of Confederation.

Three years after the ratification of the Articles of Confederation, many Americans including George Washington began to argue that the perpetual union was in danger.  On January 18, 1784, Washington wrote to Virginia governor Benjamin Harrison that the government was “a half starved, limping Government, that appears to be always moving upon crutches, & tottering at every step.” 6  Washington and other Americans had witnessed several crises during the United States’ early years under the Articles, leading to a belief among many that preventing the nation’s collapse required revisiting the Articles. On June 27, 1786, John Jay confided in Washington that “Our affairs seem to lead to some crisis . . . I am uneasy and apprehensive—more so, than during the War.” 7  In Jay’s opinion, one many leading Americans shared, the national government’s weakness led to serious problems that threatened the nation’s survival.

Congress possessed only enumerated powers under the Articles of Confederation.  It had no real power to tax, regulate commerce, or raise an army. The inability to tax created major obstacles for the new nation. Without the ability to tax the states or citizens, Congress could not raise revenue, which it needed to pay war debts to international creditors. Congress could only request money from states, and frequently, states would donate only a portion of the request or nothing at all.  Between 1781 and 1787, Congress only received $1.5 million of the $10 million that it had requested from the states.

In April 1783, Congress proposed an amendment to the Articles that would allow Congress to levy a five percent tariff on imports for no more than twenty-five years.  The revenue from the proposed tariff was specifically earmarked to pay war debts. Given the unanimous amendment process, all states had to ratify the impost for it to take effect. All states but New York had adopted the impost by early 1786.  In May 1786, New York’s legislature was willing to adopt the impost with some alterations. However, Congress did not want to accept these alterations and requested that New York remove them. When New York refused to do so in February 1787, the attempt at giving Congress the power to tax, at least in some capacity, was over.

Shays’ Rebellion coincided with the impost ratification process. Led by Daniel Shays, the rebellion was comprised of indebted farmers in western Massachusetts, many of whom were Revolutionary War veterans that had lost much of their land due to foreclosures. They could not pay the high taxes that states had imposed in order to eliminate war debt. Congress had no ability to raise its own army to suppress the rebellion, forcing the nation to rely on a privately financed Massachusetts army to put down the insurrection. This exemplified the need for not only Congress to have the ability to tax, but also the power to raise an army. Additionally, the Articles did not give Congress the power to regulate commerce explicitly. Although it could negotiate treaties and regulate all American coin, it did not have the power to negotiate complex trade treaties with foreign nations and the Articles failed to create a singular uniform currency. This lack of universal currency made trade between states and foreign nations difficult, and led to inconsistencies in currency exchange rates among the states.

Despite the Articles’ weaknesses, it also had numerous strengths. Foremost, it enabled the country to prosecute the Revolutionary War. Because Congress observed that the Articles were its de facto government until officially ratified in 1781, the Articles allowed the country to create a treaty of alliance with France in 1778. It also allowed for the negotiation of the Treaty of Paris of 1783, which ended the war.  The Articles enabled Congress to create the Departments of Foreign Affairs, Wars, Marine, and Treasury, allowed for the establishment of post offices, and had a provision that would permit Canada to join the Union in the future. Congress’s most significant legislative achievement under the Articles was its passage of a series of land ordinances in the mid-1780s: the Land Ordinance of 1784, the Land Ordinance of 1785, and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 .  These ordinances collectively provided a process for adding new and equal states to the nation, guaranteed republican governments and other rights for the new states and its inhabitants, banned slavery and involuntary servitude in the new territories after 1800, and provided for public education in the new states. Overall, the ratification of these ordinances was impressive, given the lack of unity among the states at the time and the super-majority vote needed to pass them.

Yet, the Articles of Confederation’s weaknesses triumphed over its virtues. As a result, the Annapolis Convention was called on September 11, 1786, just a few weeks after the outbreak of Shays’ Rebellion. The convention was called initially to address changes regarding trade, but the delegates realized the problems had a broader scope.  John Dickinson, who had chaired the committee to draft the Articles, was president of the Annapolis Convention.  He along with other delegates, particularly Alexander Hamilton , resolved to reconvene at a convention in Philadelphia to revise the Articles in May 1787.

The Philadelphia Convention of 1787 went beyond its mandate to revise the Articles by replacing it with a new constitution. However, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention incorporated several ideas from the Articles into the new charter. Examples of this incorporation include the full faith and credit clause and the power to declare war. In addition, the privileges and immunities clause of Article IV of the Articles was incorporated into Article IV of the Constitution.

Even after state conventions ratified the Constitution in 1788, the Articles of Confederation continued to inspire changes to the new federal charter. In 1791, Article II of the Articles of Confederation served as the basis for the 10 th Amendment to the Constitution. Born out of necessity to fight the War for Independence, the Articles of Confederation created a “perpetual union” that later generations of Americans would later strive to make “more perfect.”

Aubrianna Mierow The George Washington University

1. Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789 , ed. Worthington C. Ford et al. (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904-37), 8:431.

2. JCC, 1774-1789 , ed. Ford et al., 9:907.

4. Ibid, 9:908.

5. Ibid, 9:908-9.

6. George Washington to Benjamin Harrison, 18 January 1784, Founders Online , National Archives, last modified June 13, 2018, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/04-01-02-0039 .

7. John Jay to George Washington, 27 June 1786, Founders Online , National Archives, last modified June 13, 2018, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/04-04-02-0129 .

Bibliography:

Kaminski, John. “Empowering the Confederation: a Counterfactual Model.” (2005) Accessed November 1, 2018. https://law.utexas.edu/faculty/calvinjohnson/RighteousAnger/ SHEAR2005Kaminski.pdf .

Maier, Pauline. Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788 . New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011.

Rakove, Jack N. The Beginnings of National Politics: An Interpretive History of the Continental Congress . New York: Knopf, 1979.

Richards, Leonard L. Shays’s Rebellion: The American Revolution’s Final Battle . Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003.

Van Cleve, George. We Have Not a Government: The Articles of Confederation and the Road to the Constitution . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019.

Wood, Gordon S. The Creation of the American Republic 1776-1787 . Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 1998.

America's Historical Documents

Articles of Confederation

Engrossed and corrected copy of the Articles of Confederation, showing amendments adopted, November 15, 1777, Papers of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789; Records of the Continental and Confederation Congresses and the Constitutional Convention, 1774-1789, Record Group 360; National Archives.

After considerable debate and alteration, the Articles of Confederation were adopted by the Continental Congress on November 15, 1777. This document served as the United States' first constitution, and was in force from March 1, 1781, until 1789 when the present day Constitution went into effect.

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The first amendment, 10 reasons why america’s first constitution failed.

November 17, 2022 | by NCC Staff

It was on this day in 1777 that the Articles of Confederation, the first American constitution, was sent to the 13 states for consideration. It didn’t last a decade, for some obvious reasons.

The Articles formed a war-time confederation of states, with an extremely limited central government. The document made official some of the procedures used by the Congress to conduct business, but many of the delegates realized the Articles had limitations.

Here is a quick list of the problems that occurred, and how these issues led to our current Constitution.

1. The states didn’t act immediately. It took until February 1779 for 12 states to approve the document. Maryland held out until March 1781, after it settled a land argument with Virginia.

2. The central government was designed to be very, very weak. The Articles established “the United States of America” as a perpetual union formed to defend the states as a group, but it provided few central powers beyond that. But it didn’t have an executive official or judicial branch.

3. The Articles Congress only had one chamber and each state had one vote. This reinforced the power of the states to operate independently from the central government, even when that wasn’t in the nation’s best interests.

4. Congress needed 9 of 13 states to pass any laws. Requiring this high supermajority made it very difficult to pass any legislation that would affect all 13 states.

5. The document was practically impossible to amend. The Articles required unanimous consent to any amendment, so all 13 states would need to agree on a change. Given the rivalries between the states, that rule made the Articles impossible to adapt after the war ended with Britain in 1783.

6. The central government couldn’t collect taxes to fund its operations. The Confederation relied on the voluntary efforts of the states to send tax money to the central government. Lacking funds, the central government couldn’t maintain an effective military or back its own paper currency.

7. States were able to conduct their own foreign policies. Technically, that role fell to the central government, but the Confederation government didn’t have the physical ability to enforce that power, since it lacked domestic and international powers and standing.

8. States had their own money systems. There wasn’t a common currency in the Confederation era. The central government and the states each had separate money, which made trade between the states, and other countries, extremely difficult.

9. The Confederation government couldn’t help settle Revolutionary War-era debts. The central government and the states owed huge debts to European countries and investors. Without the power to tax, and with no power to make trade between the states and other countries viable, the United States was in an economic mess by 1787.

10. Shays’ rebellion – the final straw. A tax protest by western Massachusetts farmers in 1786 and 1787 showed the central government couldn’t put down an internal rebellion. It had to rely on a state militia sponsored by private Boston business people. With no money, the central government couldn't act to protect the "perpetual union."

These events alarmed Founders like George Washington, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton to the point where delegates from five states met at Annapolis, Maryland in September 1786 to discuss changing the Articles of Confederation.

The group included Madison, Hamilton and John Dickinson, and it recommended that a meeting of all 13 states be held the following May in Philadelphia. The Confederation Congress agreed and the Constitutional Convention of 1787 effectively ended the era of the Articles of Confederation.

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AP®︎/College US History

Course: ap®︎/college us history   >   unit 3.

• The Articles of Confederation
• Shays's Rebellion

Challenges of the Articles of Confederation

• Articles of Confederation

• The Articles of Confederation comprised the United States’ first constitution, lasting from 1776 until 1789. The Articles established a weak central government and placed most powers in the hands of the states.
• Under the Articles, the US economy faltered, since the central government lacked the power to enforce tax laws or regulate commerce.
• Shays’s Rebellion , an uprising of Revolutionary War veterans in Massachusetts that both the state and national governments struggled to address due to a lack of centralized military power, illustrated the need to create a stronger governing system.

America: the teenage years

The us government under the articles of confederation, economic problems under the articles, shays’s rebellion, food for thought, want to join the conversation.

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Intro.6.2 Weaknesses in the Articles of Confederation

Weaknesses inherent in the Articles of Confederation became apparent before the Revolution out of which that instrument was born had been concluded. Even before the thirteenth state (Maryland) conditionally joined the firm league of friendship on March 1, 1781, the need for a revenue amendment was widely conceded. Congress under the Articles lacked authority to levy taxes. She could only request the states to contribute their fair share to the common treasury, but the requested amounts were not forthcoming. To remedy this defect, Congress applied to the states for power to lay duties and secure the public debts. Twelve states agreed to such an amendment, but Rhode Island refused her consent, thereby defeating the proposal.

Thus was emphasized a second weakness in the Articles of Confederation, namely, the liberum veto which each state possessed whenever amendments to that instrument were proposed. Not only did all amendments have to be ratified by each of the thirteen states, but all important legislation needed the approval of nine states. With several delegations often absent, one or two states were able to defeat legislative proposals of major importance.

Other imperfections in the Articles of Confederation also proved embarrassing. Congress could, for example, negotiate treaties with foreign powers, but all treaties had to be ratified by the several states. Even when a treaty was approved, Congress lacked authority to secure obedience to its stipulations. Congress could not act directly upon the states or upon individuals. Under such circumstances foreign nations doubted the value of a treaty with the new Republic.

Furthermore, Congress had no authority to regulate foreign or interstate commerce. Legislation in this field, subject to unimportant exceptions, was left to the individual states. Disputes between states with common interests in the navigation of certain rivers and bays were inevitable. Discriminatory regulations were followed by reprisals.

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The Articles of Confederation – Who, What, When, and Why?

Click here for the Full Online Text of Articles of Confederation

The members of the Second Continental Congress wrote t he Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union. It was the forerunner to the United States constitution . 

The Authors of the Articles of Confederation

The  Articles of Confederation  authors were the committee members formed on June 11, 1776, after the Lee Resolution moved Congress to work toward independence from Great Britain.

The committee comprised delegates from each of the thirteen colonies, and John Dickinson, representing Pennsylvania, was the committee chairperson. 

The committee was tasked to “prepare and digest the form of a confederation” for the national Congress forming. 

A draft of the document, written mainly by Dickinson, was presented to Congress on July 12, 1776.

Benjamin Franklin’s input

People who influenced the tone of the Articles include Benjamin Franklin. Franklin attended the Albany Congress in 1754 and authored the Albany Plan of Union, a plan to create a unified government for the thirteen colonies. 

Using the Albany Plan as the basis, Franklin presented a draft of the  Articles of Confederation  to Congress in July 1775. 

Another contributor to early versions of the Articles was Silas Deane, Connecticut, who also submitted a draft later in 1775.

Drafts of the Articles of Confederation

By the time the Articles of Confederation were approved by Congress, six separate drafts had been submitted. Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane proposed drafts, and the Connecticut delegation presented the third draft. 

John Dickinson wrote the fourth draft, and with this version Congress took serious deliberation. Finally, a fifth and then a sixth draft was written due to the lengthy debate on Dickinson’s original draft.

What is significant about Dickinson’s draft is that he named the new nation being formed the United States of America. 

His version provided a congress representative from the states based on population and gave the national government the powers not designated to the states. 

State Governments

The state governments were given powers above the national government, not “expressly delegated to the United States.” 

Dickinson’s national charter created a decentralized and  limited unicameral national government  with the greater powers in the state governments’ hands. 

This arrangement of a union of states was proposed to be “a firm league of friendship with each other.” 

The congressional delegates reached a consensus on the Articles of Confederation wording when state sovereignty was guaranteed. 

Voting in Congress would be  en bloc  by each state. The Articles consisted of four sections:

• thirteen articles
• a conclusion
• a signatory section. 

Sadly for him, John Dickinson was no longer serving in Congress when the Articles of Confederation he wrote were approved in late 1777.

When Were the Articles of Confederation Ratified?

It took a long time for Congress to approve the draft John Dickinson submitted. Of course, it didn’t help that Congress had to relocate twice during the deliberations to flee from the British Army during the American Revolutionary War. 

Major sticking points among the state delegates were the issues of land claims and state sovereignty. 

Finally, in 1777, when the state issues cleared up, Congress reached a consensus and approved the Articles of Confederation. They were to be sent to the 13 states to be ratified.

The land issue continued to be contentious during the ratification process and delayed the final ratification for several years.

The States Ratified the Articles of Confederation

A month after Congress submitted the Articles, Virginia was the first state to ratify it. By November of the following year, all the states except Delaware and Maryland had also ratified the Articles. 

Delaware ratified the Articles in February 1779, leaving only the State of Maryland. 

The State of Maryland refused to sign the Articles because of the issue over western land claims. Maryland made it clear that it would not ratify the Articles until the states with western land claims ceded them to the nation. 

It took two years for Maryland to be satisfied that all landed states would follow through with this promise. Finally, Maryland ratified the Articles in early February 1781. 

On March 1, 1781, Congress officially declared the Articles of Confederation to be in force as the nation’s governing charter.

The United States Under the Articles of Confederation

Little changed for Congress with the adoption of the Articles as the law of the land. When Congress presented the Articles to the states, the country acted as if it was already law. 

The official adoption of the Articles merely legalized what Congress had already been doing. 

The name of Congress was changed to the Congress of the Confederation, but Congress continued to be popularly called the Continental Congress. 

Treaties and Settlements

Under the Articles, Congress negotiated treaties with foreign powers and concluded the American Revolutionary War by signing the  Treaty of Paris  in 1783. 

The Confederation Congress also developed an organized settlement plan for the Northwest Territory.

Limitations of the Articles of Confederation

For the most part, the limitations placed on the United States’ national government made it incapable of effectively governing the country. 

It became evident that major changes needed to be made to the Articles for the national government to function correctly and these necessary changes to be made quickly.

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Making Space for the Constitutional Convention

A few years after the Articles were adopted, representatives of some of the central states met to work out some trade and economic issues. As news of this meeting spread, more states also wanted to join the meeting.

The hope was to make changes to the Articles to make the government stronger, and a meeting for this purpose was set for May 25, 1787. 

At this meeting, it became evident that simple changes to the Articles would not be enough, and it was agreed that a new national charter needed to be created. 

This group became the Constitutional Convention, and work began drafting a new national government.

US Constitution Replaces Articles of Confederation

Quite different from the government under the Articles, the new national government was a strong federal government, a bicameral legislature, and had separate executive, legislative, and judicial branches. 

Nearly two years of difficult work went into drafting the new charter. 

On March 4, 1789, the Articles of Confederation were replaced with the United States Constitution.

Watch the following video that summarizes the Articles of Confederation:

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It’s time to bring John A. Macdonald out of his confinement

Boards encase a statue of Canada's first prime minister, John A. Macdonald, at the base of the lawn of Queen's Park in Toronto on June 21. Cole Burston/The Globe and Mail

What kind of country keeps its founder in a box?

At Queen’s Park, the seat of Ontario’s government in Toronto, a statue of Sir John A. Macdonald, a father of Confederation and Canada’s first prime minister, stands boarded up on all sides, hidden from the public.

The boards went up after protesters vandalized the statue , blaming Macdonald for the establishment of the residential school system for Indigenous children. They have remained there for the past four years – so long that rodents began using the box as a home.

A legislative committee is finally debating what to do with the statue, but what its decision will be or when it will come is unclear. In the meantime, the box bears a cryptic message: “Though we cannot change the history we have inherited, we can shape the history we wish to leave behind.” No mention at all is made of the man who stands inside. He has been rendered a non-person, his name unmentionable.

Absurd. Winston Churchill said some awful things about Indian nationalism and Mahatma Gandhi, whom he called a “malignant subversive fanatic,” but his statue still stands proudly in London’s Parliament Square. Another version stands outside Toronto ’s City Hall, an acknowledgment of his heroic leadership in the fight against fascism in the Second World War.

George Washington’s estate at Mount Vernon was populated by more than 300 enslaved people at the time of his death, yet the Washington monument still looms over the U.S. capital. Napoleon Bonaparte unleashed years of war in Europe, bringing much of the continent under his heel until his final defeat at Waterloo. Today tourists can visit his grandiose tomb in Paris.

Self-respecting countries remember their great historical figures, recognizing their virtues while conceding their sins. In the past several years, all of the emphasis has been on the sins. Egerton Ryerson has his statue toppled and his name erased from what is now Toronto Metropolitan University. His critics said his ideas laid the groundwork for the residential schools, though he spoke Ojibway and supported the land claims of the Mississaugas of the Credit. All but eclipsed in the controversy was his role in establishing Ontario ’s public-school system.

Henry Dundas is having his name removed from Toronto’s Yonge-Dundas Square, which is being rechristened Sankofa Square after a word, taken from the Akan Tribe of Ghana, that suggests the value of reflecting on the past. His defenders say that the charge against him – helping to delay the abolition of the slave trade – is false. In fact, they insist, he was a determined abolitionist who once defended an escaped slave before the courts.

If it’s wrong to lionize our national champions, glossing over their failures and their crimes, it is equally wrong to villainize them. Most of them are neither complete heroes nor utter rogues. A true understanding of history demands we view them in the round, considering all their human complexity.

John A. Macdonald expressed some vile – and, sadly widespread – opinions about Indigenous peoples. He had many other flaws and made many mistakes in his long tenure as Canada’s dominant political leader. But as one of his leading biographers, Richard Gwyn, argued, all of this must be set against his accomplishments, among them the creation of the transcontinental railway and the North-West Mounted Police. Before he died, said Mr. Gwyn, Macdonald made sure that “Canada had outpaced the challenge of survival and had begun to take the shape of a true country.”

Here is how the Canadian Encyclopedia summarizes him: “Macdonald helped unite the British North American colonies in Confederation and was a key figure in the writing of the British North America Act – the foundation of Canada’s Constitution. He oversaw the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) and the addition of Manitoba, the North-West Territories, British Columbia and Prince Edward Island to Confederation. However, his legacy also includes the creation of the residential school system for Indigenous children, the policies that contributed to the starvation of Plains Indigenous peoples, and the ‘head tax’ on Chinese immigrants.”

The past few years have seen an overdue reckoning with the tremendous and lasting harms done to Indigenous peoples during European colonization. But there are other remedies than erasing names and pulling down statues. One is to raise memorials to the victims of those times. Mount Vernon has a slave memorial close to the tombs of George and Martha Washington. Another is to explain and educate. A few years ago the foundation that runs Thomas Jefferson’s plantation at Monticello, Va., unveiled a series of nuanced exhibits about Sally Hemings, the enslaved woman who bore several children by the man who drafted the U.S. Declaration of Independence.

Instead of hiding Macdonald away, why not install a display at Queen’s Park about residential schools and his role in their story? Putting the statue of our first prime minister in a wooden box achieves nothing and satisfies no one. It is time to bring Sir John A. into the light.

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Ballerina Farm blasts article as 'an attack on our family': Everything to know

After garnering more than 18 million followers across social media in part due to the interest in "trad wives," Hannah Neeleman  – better known as Ballerina Farm – has gone viral again.

Neeleman, who made headlines earlier this year for competing in the Mrs. World pageant two weeks after giving birth to her eighth child, sparked a frenzy with her recent interview with The Times of London , the headline of which reads "Meet the queen of the 'trad wives' (and her eight children)."

Some TikTok users pointed out how the article revealed the extent of the physical and emotional labor Neeleman performs day-to-day. Many reacting to the piece on social media reference husband Daniel Neeleman revealing that apparently Hannah is sometimes so ill from exhaustion that she is bedridden for a week. Others took to the comments in @BallerinaFarm's posts to defend a woman's choice to stay at home and raise a family.

More than a week after The Times published their article, Neeleman spoke out in a video about feeling shocked by the published piece, calling it "an attack on our family."

In the Times interview, Hannah Neeleman said despite being the most prominent among online influencers labeled as "trad wives," she does not "necessarily identify with it."

"We are traditional in the sense that it's a man and a woman, we have children, but I do feel like we're paving a lot of paths that haven’t been paved before," Neeleman told The Times. "So for me to have the label of a traditional woman ... I'm kinda like, I don’t know if I identify with that."

So who is the woman behind the Ballerina Farm account? Why is The Times article making waves? And what is a "trad wife?" Here's everything you need to know:

Hannah Neeleman responds to The Times of London article

Eleven days after The Times published its feature on the Neelemans, Hannah Neeleman expressed her disappointment with the story in a 1½-minute video .

"A couple of weeks ago, we had a reporter come into our home to learn more about our family and business," she said in a get-ready-with-me video. "We were taken back, however, when we saw the printed article which shocked us and shocked the world by being an attack on our family and my marriage, portraying me as oppressed with my husband being the culprit."

"This couldn't be further from the truth. Nothing we said in the interview implied this conclusion, which leads me to believe the angle taken was predetermined," she continued.

"The greatest day of my life was when Daniel and I were married 13 years ago. Together we have built a business from scratch, we've brought eight children into this world and have prioritized our marriage all along the way. We are co-parents, co-CEOs, co-diaper changers, kitchen cleaners and decision makers. We are one, and I love him more today than I did 13 years ago."

What are 'trad wives?'

Not all trad wives, or "traditional wives," are alike, trad wife content creator Estee Williams previously told USA TODAY. In her eyes, trad wives are homemakers whose priority is cooking, cleaning and being subservient to men. But such submission isn't "degrading," she says. It's her choice. 

Williams said she believes trad wives are part of "traditional" marriages between a man and a woman. "I'm not coming online shaming anybody for who they love or how they choose to live their life," she said. "I just simply showcase mine. I don't want to threaten anybody's lifestyle, but I also am not going to diminish my own light because that might threaten somebody else's lifestyle."

Many view Neeleman's account as trad wife content. In videos, she's seen milking cows ,  preparing meals  for her family, often made from homegrown products, and sharing updates on their  farm animals .

Why are 'trad wives' controversial?

Journalist and author  Jo Piazza  previously told USA TODAY there are aspects of the trad wife aesthetic that can be harmful to young girls.

"I do like the idea that we are elevating the kinds of work that women do in the home to something that we do want to see, to something that is aspirational," Piazza said. "The dangers in that are when you say: 'This is the only thing a woman should be doing. This is the only role that a woman should be playing.'"

Alex DiBranco, founder of the  Institute for Research on Male Supremacism , posited in  an interview  with Yale's Institution for Social and Policy Studies that trad wives are uplifting a male supremacist society. "Some are more complicit in the operations of male supremacism than others, such as certain conservative religions, certain wings of the atheist movement, so-called trad wives who are influenced by patriarchy to support patriarchy," she said.

Williams said, in defense of trad wives: "There's this idea that trad wives have a sinister intent of white supremacy, but there's trad wives of every ethnicity and race online."

All about Hannah Neeleman and Ballerina Farm

Neeleman, born Hannah Wright and the eighth of nine children, was accepted to The Juilliard School's dance program at 17 and began competing in pageants, as she explains on her website , to earn financial assistance for her schooling.

She met Daniel Neeleman the summer before her senior year, and the two were married months later; they are both Mormon. Per Neeleman, her new husband ended his collegiate lacrosse career at Brigham Young University — a school sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the Mormon church — to move to New York so they could be together.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Official Mrs. American Pageant Page (@mrsamericanofficial)

They welcomed their firstborn, Henry, in May 2012, and she accepted her diploma while cradling her newborn in her arms, she says.

They lived in São Paulo, Brazil, for several years before heading to Utah and buying a farm to start a small business together.

Who is Daniel Neeleman?

Daniel Neeleman also grew up one of nine children in an entrepreneurially minded family. He's the son of businessman David Neeleman, who founded airlines such as WestJet, JetBlue Airways and Breeze Airways.

Daniel Neeleman goes by @hogfathering on social media.

Speaking with The Times, Neeleman argued that he's not the head of the household, but rather he and his wife are "co-CEOs."

How many kids do Hannah and Daniel Neeleman have?

Together, the Neelemans have eight children who range from less than a year old to 12 years old.

Their children are: Henry, Charles, George, Frances, Lois, Martha, Mabel and Flora.

Contributing: David Oliver

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Black Men Rally for Kamala Harris, and Confront an Elephant in the Room

“I’m standing behind a Black woman to be president of the United States, and it doesn’t make me any less of a Black man,” said the Illinois attorney general. “I’m asking all of you all to do the same.”

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By Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Erica L. Green

Reporting from Washington

A day after Vice President Kamala Harris announced that she intended to seek the Democratic presidential nomination, more than 40,000 Black men from across the country convened on a virtual fund-raising call to discuss what the moment required of them.

For four hours, one Black man after another — prominent politicians, activists, entertainers — laid out the challenges ahead for Ms. Harris, including the racist and sexist attacks they expected from her opponents. In pledging their support, many offered emotional testimonies about the personal relationships they have built with her.

But it was not long before the men confronted the elephant in the room.

“Sometimes as Black men we get confused as to what strength is, and sometimes we think that standing behind a Black woman as a leader does not display strength as Black men,” said Kwame Raoul, the attorney general of Illinois. “I’m here to tell you all tonight that it does the opposite of that, it displays strength.”

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The call, one in a series the Harris campaign has held in recent weeks with Black women, white women and white “dudes,” was a rallying cry to a part of a crucial Democratic constituency seen as skeptical of Ms. Harris.

While Black men have been reliable voters for Democrats for decades, Mr. Raoul was touching on an uncomfortable truth: A small but significant slice of Black men have historically been hesitant to support Black women seeking the highest positions of power. The numbers are on the margins but could be crucial to carrying Ms. Harris to victory in November.

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Coming to Game Pass: Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, Creatures of Ava, and Mafia: Definitive Edition

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I’m back with more games to populate your download queue! Day one titles, fan favorites, and some reminders on some announcements you might have missed (I see you there Valorant !). Let’s get to the games!

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