The Articles of Confederation were the first written constitution of the United States, adopted by the Second Continental Congress on November 15th, 1777, and ratified by all thirteen states on March 1st, 1781. The document created a loose union of states under a weak central government, deliberately designed to prevent the kind of concentrated authority the colonists had just fought to escape. While the Articles guided the new nation through the final years of the Revolutionary War and its immediate aftermath, their weaknesses became increasingly clear in peacetime, eventually leading to their replacement by the United States Constitution in 1789.
What Was the American Revolution?
The American Revolution was the political and military struggle through which the Thirteen Colonies broke free from British rule and established the United States of America. Once independence was declared in 1776, the new nation needed some form of permanent government to replace the temporary arrangement of the Continental Congress. The Articles of Confederation were the answer to that need. They represented the first attempt by Americans to design a government for themselves, and the lessons learned from their failure were just as important as whatever successes they achieved.
Background – Writing the Articles
Work on the Articles of Confederation began almost at the same time as the Declaration of Independence. On June 11th, 1776, the Second Continental Congress appointed a committee of one delegate from each colony to draft a plan of union. John Dickinson of Pennsylvania, who had also drafted the Olive Branch Petition, led the committee and produced a first draft. The document went through extensive debate and revision over the following year, with delegates arguing particularly over how taxes should be apportioned among the states and whether large and small states should have equal voting power. Congress adopted the final version on November 15th, 1777, and sent it to the states for ratification.
Ratification took longer than expected. Most states agreed quickly, but Maryland refused to sign until states with large western land claims, particularly Virginia, agreed to turn those lands over to the national government. Maryland’s concern was that states without western claims would be at a permanent disadvantage compared to those that could sell western land to pay their debts. Virginia and the other large-claim states eventually agreed, and Maryland ratified on March 1st, 1781, finally bringing the Articles into force.
What the Articles Created
The Articles of Confederation established what they called a “firm league of friendship” among the thirteen states. Each state retained its sovereignty, freedom, and independence. The central government consisted of a single body, the Confederation Congress, in which each state had one vote regardless of its population or size. There was no president, no executive branch, and no national court system. Passing any significant legislation required the approval of nine of the thirteen states, and any amendment to the Articles required unanimous agreement from all thirteen.
Congress was given authority to declare war, make peace, negotiate treaties, manage relations with Native American nations, maintain a postal service, coin money, and manage foreign affairs. These were meaningful powers, and Congress used them to guide the nation through the end of the Revolutionary War and to negotiate the Treaty of Paris of 1783. In reality, however, most of the authority in the new system rested with the individual states, not with the national government.
Weaknesses of the Articles
The most serious weakness of the Articles of Confederation was that Congress had no power to levy taxes. It could ask the states to contribute money to the national government, but it had no way to compel them to do so. States frequently ignored these requests or paid only a fraction of what was asked. As a result, the national government was almost always short of money, unable to pay its debts from the Revolutionary War, and unable to pay or properly supply the small army it maintained.
Congress also had no power to regulate trade between the states or with foreign nations. This created significant problems, as states began imposing their own tariffs on goods from other states, leading to trade disputes and economic confusion. States also printed their own money, which contributed to inflation and a general distrust of paper currency. Foreign nations took note of the weakness of the central government and took advantage of it, as Britain refused to honor parts of the Treaty of Paris and Spain closed the Mississippi River to American trade, knowing Congress lacked the leverage to respond effectively.
Perhaps most damaging was the fact that Congress could pass laws but had no way to enforce them. If a state chose to ignore a federal law or treaty obligation, the national government had no practical means of compelling compliance. As George Washington wrote to a Virginia official in January of 1784, the government appeared to be “a half starved, limping Government, that appears to be always moving upon crutches.”
Achievements Under the Articles
Despite their many weaknesses, the Articles did achieve some important things. The Land Ordinance of 1785 established a system for surveying and selling western lands, creating a framework for organized settlement of the territory north and west of the Ohio River. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 went further, establishing a process by which new states could eventually be admitted to the Union on equal footing with the original thirteen. It also guaranteed basic rights for settlers in the territory and banned slavery there. These land ordinances are considered among the most significant legislative achievements of the Confederation period.
The Articles also provided the framework within which the Treaty of Paris was negotiated and ratified, formally ending the Revolutionary War and securing American independence. The experience of governing under the Articles, imperfect as it was, gave American leaders valuable practical knowledge about what a national government needed to do and what the Articles failed to provide.
Shays’ Rebellion and the Call for Reform
The crisis that made the failure of the Articles impossible to ignore came in the autumn and winter of 1786 and 1787. A group of Massachusetts farmers, many of them Revolutionary War veterans, were unable to pay their debts and faced the seizure of their farms by state courts. Led by Daniel Shays, a former captain in the Continental Army, several hundred armed men rose up to block the courts from operating. The rebellion alarmed political leaders across the country. The national government had no army to send and no money to raise one. Massachusetts had to put down the rebellion with its own militia.
Shays’ Rebellion convinced many leaders, including George Washington, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton, that the Articles of Confederation were simply too weak to hold the country together. In September of 1786, delegates from several states had already met at the Annapolis Convention to discuss trade problems and had called for a broader convention to revise the Articles. The Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia beginning in May of 1787 and went far beyond its original mandate, producing an entirely new constitution.
Significance of the Articles of Confederation
The Articles of Confederation hold an important place in American history as the country’s first attempt at a national government under a written framework. They kept the new nation functioning during a critical period when it was still fighting for its survival and in the difficult years immediately after the war. The Northwest Ordinance, passed under the Articles, shaped the development of the American west for generations.
At the same time, the weaknesses of the Articles taught American leaders precisely what kind of government they needed to build next. The inability to tax, regulate trade, or enforce laws made the case for a stronger federal government more clearly than any argument could have. In this way, the failure of the Articles of Confederation was just as important to the founding of the United States as its achievements.
