Articles of Confederation

Examples of Articles of Confederation in the following topics:

• The Articles of Confederation

  • The Articles of Confederation were the United States' first governing document, and had many weaknesses.
  • The Articles of Confederation were an agreement among the 13 founding states, legally establishing the United States of America as a confederation of sovereign states and serving as its first constitution.
  • The Articles of Confederation, which established a "firm league" among the 13 free and independent states, constituted an international agreement to set up central institutions for conducting vital domestic and foreign affairs.
  • The Articles envisioned a permanent confederation of states, but granted its Congress—the only federal institution—little power to finance itself or ensure that its resolutions were enforced.
  • In May 1786, Continental Congress member Charles Pinckney of South Carolina proposed that Congress revise the Articles.

• Nationalists of the 1780s

  • Long dissatisfied with the weak Articles of Confederation, nationalists drafted a resolution to form the Annapolis Convention.
  • As the Articles of Confederation could only be amended by unanimous vote of the states, any state had effective veto power over any proposed change .
  • Long dissatisfied with the weak Articles of Confederation, Alexander Hamilton of New York played a major leadership role.
  • The defects that they were to remedy were those barriers that limited trade or commerce between the largely independent states under the Articles of Confederation.
  • The Articles of Confederation were ratified in 1781; the Articles were the governing document of the United States until the Constitution.

• Congress of the Confederation

  • The Congress of the Confederation was the governing body of the United States from 1781 to 1789.
  • The Congress of the Confederation was the governing body of the United States of America, in force from March 1, 1781, to March 4, 1789.
  • The Congress of the Confederation opened in the final stages of the American Revolution.
  • The membership of the Second Continental Congress automatically carried over to the Congress of the Confederation when the latter was created through the ratification of the Articles of Confederation.
  • The Articles of Confederation established a weak national government that consisted of a one-house legislature.

• Calls for a Stronger Constitution

  • Delegates from Virginia and Maryland met at Mount Vernon to settle issues not addressed in the Articles of Confederation and create a model for interstate cooperation.
  • Its primary aim was to settle issues not addressed under the Articles of Confederation, including interstate cooperation.
  • These issues were not addressed directly by the Articles of Confederation, which regulated the 13 largely independent states at the time, nor by the authorization of the Potomac Company a year earlier, which was to regulate the Potomac above the Great Falls.
  • The conference was significant as a model of interstate cooperation outside of the framework of the relatively weak Articles of Confederation.
  • In 1787, the Philadelphia Convention further expanded cooperation to include all states in an effort to reform or replace the Articles of Confederation with a new constitution.

• Financial Chaos and Paper Money

  • Under the Articles of Confederation, the central government's power to regulate financial matters was kept quite limited.
  • Under the Articles of Confederation, the central government's power was kept quite limited: the Confederation Congress could make decisions, but lacked the power to enforce them.
  • Implementation of most decisions, including modifications to the Articles, required unanimous approval of all 13 state legislatures.
  • Under the Articles of Confederation, Congress was denied any powers of taxation and could only request money from the state legislatures.
  • The states and the Confederation Congress both incurred large debts during the Revolutionary War, and how to repay those debts became a major issue of debate (some states paid off their war debts and others did not).

• Finance

  • Discord between the states and the federal government over taxation and trade further weakened the legitimacy of the Articles of Confederation.
  • Under the Articles of Confederation, Congress was denied any powers of taxation: it could only request money from the states.
  • The states and the Confederation Congress both incurred large debts during the Revolutionary War, and how to repay those debts became a major issue of debate following the war.
  • Federal assumption of the states' war debts became a major issue in the deliberations of the Constitutional Convention.
  • Tracts in Ohio that were surveyed, all in the 18th century, into townships with individual sections numbered by the procedures of the Land Ordinance of 1785

• Trade and Economy

  • States were responsible for their own trade policies under the Articles of Confederation.
  • Under the Articles of Confederation, Congress was denied the power to regulate either foreign trade or interstate commerce, and as a result, all of the states maintained control over their own trade policies.
  • The states and the Confederation Congress both incurred large debts during the Revolutionary War, and how to repay those debts became a major issue of debate following the War.
  • Federal assumption of the states' war debts became a major issue in the deliberations of the Constitutional Convention.
  • Map of the states and territories of the United States from August 1789 to 1790.

• From Annapolis to Philadelphia

  • Prior to the Philadelphia Convention, delegates met twice-—at Mount Vernon and Annapolis—to discuss changes to the Confederation.
  • These issues were not addressed directly by the Articles of Confederation, which regulated the thirteen largely independent American states at the time, nor by the authorization of the Potomac Company a year earlier which was to regulate the Potomac above the Great Falls.
  • The conference was significant as a model of interstate cooperation outside the framework of the weak Articles of Confederation.
  • Long dissatisfied with the weak Articles of Confederation, Alexander Hamilton of New York played a major role in the Annapolis Convention.
  • Examine how the Mount Vernon Conference pushed states further away from the Articles and closer to the Constitution

• Diplomacy

  • The Articles allowed the Continental Congress to direct the American Revolutionary War and conduct domestic and international diplomacy.
  • The formal ratification of the Articles of Confederation by all 13 states was completed in early 1781.
  • Unfortunately, after the war ended in 1783, the weakness of the Confederation government frustrated the ability of the government to conduct foreign policy.
  • This incomplete British implementation of the Treaty of Paris (1783) was superseded by the implementation of Jay's Treaty in 1795 under the new U.S.
  • Examine how the Articles of Confederation supported Congress during the American Revolution

• Land Policy under the Confederation

  • The Confederation Congress' Land Ordinance and Northwest Ordinance had a lasting impact on US history.
  • Under the Articles of Confederation, Congress lacked the power to raise revenue through direct taxation of US inhabitants.
  • The Congress of the Confederation enacted the Northwest Ordinance in 1787 to provide for administration of the territories and set rules for admission as a state.
  • It established the precedent by which the federal government would be sovereign and expand westward across North America with the admission of new states, rather than with the expansion of existing states and their established sovereignty under the Articles of Confederation.
  • In a conflict sometimes known as the Northwest Indian War, Blue Jacket of the Shawnees and Little Turtle of the Miamis formed a confederation to stop white expropriation of the territory.