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The Articles of Confederation
The Articles of Confederation was the first constitution of the United
States of America. The Articles of Confederation were first drafted by the Continental
Congress in Philadelphia Pennsylvania in 1777. This first draft was prepared by a man
named John Dickinson in 1776. The Articles were then ratified in 1781. The cause for the
changes to be made was due to state jealousies and widespread distrust of the central
authority. This jealousy then led to the emasculation of the document.
As adopted, the articles provided only for a "firm league of
friendship" in which each of the 13 states expressly held "its sovereignty,
freedom, and independence." The People of each state were given equal privileges and
rights, freedom of movement was guaranteed, and procedures for the trials of accused
criminals were outlined. The articles established a national legislature called the
Congress, consisting of two to seven delegates from each state; each state had one vote,
according to its size or population. No executive or judicial branches were provided for.
Congress was charged with responsibility for conducting foreign relations, declaring war
or peace, maintaining an army and navy, settling boundary disputes, establishing and
maintaining a postal service, and various lesser functions. Some of these responsibilities
were shared with the states, and in one way or another Congress was dependent upon the
cooperation of the states for carrying out any of them. Four visible weaknesses of the
articles, apart from those of organization, made it impossible for Congress to execute its
constitutional duties. These were analyzed in numbers 15-22 of The FEDERALIST, the
political essays in which Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay argued the case
for the U.S. CONSTITUTION of 1787. The first weakness was that Congress could legislate
only for states, not for individuals; because of this it could not enforce legislation.
Second, Congress had no power to tax. Instead, it was to assess its expenses and divide
those among the states on the basis of the value of land. States were then to tax their
own citizens to raise the money for these expenses and turn the proceeds over to Congress.
They could not be forced to do so, and in practice they rarely met their obligations.
Third, Congress lacked the power to control commerce--without its power to conduct foreign
relations was not necessary, since most treaties except those of peace were concerned
mainly with trade. The fourth weakness ensured the demise of the Confederation by making
it too difficult to correct the first three. Amendments could have corrected any of the
weaknesses, but amendments required approval by all 13 state legislatures. None of the
several amendments that were proposed met that requirement. On the days from September 11,
1786 to September 14, 1786, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Virginia had a meeting
of there delegates at the Annapolis Convention. Too few states were represented to carry
out the original purpose of the meeting--to discuss the regulation of interstate
commerce--but there was a larger topic at question, specifically, the weakness of the
Articles of Confederation. Alexander Hamilton successfully proposed that the states be
invited to send delegates to Philadelphia to render the constitution of the Federal
Government adequate to the exigencies of the Union." As a result, the Constitutional
Convention was held in May 1787. The Constitutional Convention, which wrote the
Constitution of the United States, was held in Philadelphia on May 25, 1787. It was called
by the Continental Congress and several states in response to the expected bankruptcy of
Congress and a sense of panic arising from an armed revolt--Shays's Rebellion--in New
England. The convention's assigned job, following proposals made at the Annapolis
Convention the previous September, was to create amendments to the Articles of
Confederation. The delegates, however, immediately started writing a new constitution.
Fifty-five delegates representing 12 states attended at least part of the sessions.
Thirty-four of them were lawyers; most of the others were planters or merchants. Although
George Washington, who presided, was 55, and John Dickinson was 54, Benjamin Franklin 81,
and Roger Shermen 66, most of the delegates were young men in their 20s and 30s.
Noticeable absent were the revolutionary leaders of the effort for independence in
1775-76, such as John Adams, Patrick Henry, and Thomas Jefferson. The delegates' knowledge
concerning government, both ideal and practical, made the convention perhaps the most
intelligent such gathering ever assembled.
On September 17 the Constitution was signed by 39 of the 42 delegates
present. A period of national argument followed, during which the case for support of the
constitution was strongly presented in the FEDERALIST essays of Alexander Hamilton, John
Jay, and James Madison. The last of the 13 states to ratify the Constitution was Rhode
Island on May 29, 1790.
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