Articles of Confederation – Essay
Lexile: 1180
Word Count: 608
Vocabulary: taxes, self-government, confederacy, delegate, expressly, solidify, debtor, ratify, executive
Purpose of the Articles of the Confederation
The newly independent colonies’ first attempt at forming a legal relationship was with the Articles of Confederation. This document was adopted by the Second Continental Congress in November 1777 and not ratified by the thirteen states until 1781.
The document set forth “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.” These states agreed to 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.” The document does not mention a nation, or a national government.
Structure and Flaws of the Articles
Rather than a nation, the Articles created a confederacy, or an association of sovereign states. Every state was its own country, except with respect to those powers expressly delegated to the U.S. Congress, and it agreed to do certain things for and with the other states in the confederacy. Any changes to the Articles themselves needed every state to agree.
There was no national executive department or national court system. The Confederation Congress could not effectively collect taxes, raise an army, or regulate interstate commerce. In the years following, states issued their own currency and put tariffs on the trading of each other’s goods. By the mid-1780s, more and more people were concerned about the problems with the Articles. A major worry was that the weak central government did not have the power to make uniform business and trade laws for the country. Its inability to collect taxes meant the young country could not pay its debts from the Revolutionary War.
The Annapolis Convention
In September of 1786, five of the thirteen states sent representatives to what was called the Annapolis Convention. There, the representatives decided to call a future convention for the purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation. All of the states were invited to send delegates to this convention, which would begin in Philadelphia the next May. The Confederation Congress passed a resolution urging states to send delegates. This historic meeting would later become known as the Constitutional Convention.
Shays’ Rebellion
After the Annapolis Convention but before the Philadelphia Convention, the events of Shays’ Rebellion solidified in many minds the need for a stronger central government. Western Massachusetts farmers were angry with their state government’s refusal to pass debt relief and issue paper money. Daniel Shays, a former Continental Army Captain, led a militia that stormed court buildings so that action against bankrupt debtors could not proceed. The militia released debtors from prison. Eventually, a stronger army organized by the state crushed the rebellion, though it took five months more to do so.
John Jay noted that some in Massachusetts who had previously opposed the Philadelphia Convention were now speaking out in favor of revising the Articles, in light of the rebellion. George Washington, already in favor of revising the Articles, was among those who were worried about protests that violated the law. He feared the rebellion would be a sign to the world that the American people were not fit for self-government, and that their experiment in independence had failed.
Washington wrote in 1786 to Henry Lee,
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George Washington to Henry Lee, October 31, 1786 |
Vocabulary and Context |
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“The accounts which are published of the commotions [of Shays’ Rebellion]…exhibit a melancholy proof of what our trans-Atlantic foe has predicted; and of another thing perhaps, which is still more to be regretted, and is yet more unaccountable, that mankind when left to themselves are unfit for their own Government. |
Commotions- a disturbance
our trans-Atlantic foe- Washington is referring to Britain here. England sits across the Atlantic Ocean. They are a foe, or enemy, because America was recently at war with them for independence. |
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I am mortified beyond expression when I view the clouds that have spread over the brightest morn that ever dawned upon any Country… |
Mortified- embarrassed |
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To be more exposed in the eyes of the world, and more contemptible than we already are, is hardly possible… [if the government] shrinks, or is unable to enforce its laws…anarchy and confusion must prevail.” |
Contemptible- despicable or deserving of dislike
Anarchy- lawlessness |
The Constitutional Convention
The Philadelphia meeting proceeded as planned in the summer of 1787. Washington came out of retirement in order to preside over the Convention, and James Madison, an important political thinker and politician from Virginia, was the chief author of the new Constitution. It provided a new, much stronger central government that brought greater unity to the country.