What were the Articles of Confederation?

The Articles of Confederation were the first written constitution of the United States, in force from March 1, 1781 until the present Constitution took effect on March 4, 1789. Drafted by John Dickinson and a committee of the Second Continental Congress beginning in June 1776, the Articles were sent to the states on November 15, 1777 for ratification. Maryland delayed approval until Virginia and other large states ceded their western land claims to the new national government, and the document only took effect when Maryland finally ratified on February 2, 1781, with Congress proclaiming the Articles in force the following month.

The Articles created a confederation of 13 sovereign states bound together for limited common purposes. Article II reserved to each state every power, jurisdiction, and right not expressly delegated to the United States. Article III described the union as a firm league of friendship. Power was concentrated in a single chamber, the Confederation Congress, in which each state had one vote regardless of population. Each state delegation ranged from two to seven members, but they cast a single state vote. Most ordinary measures required nine of the 13 states to approve, and amendments required unanimous consent of all 13.

There was no executive branch and no national judiciary. A presiding officer called the President of the Congress served a one year term and had no executive authority; men like Samuel Huntington, Thomas McKean, John Hanson, and Cyrus Griffin held the position. Congress had express powers including conducting foreign relations, declaring war, making peace, settling boundary disputes between states, regulating Indian affairs in some respects, establishing post offices, coining money, and borrowing money. Crucially, it lacked the power to tax, the power to regulate interstate or foreign commerce, and the power to enforce its requisitions on the states. It could only request states to supply funds and troops, and the states routinely fell short.

Despite these structural weaknesses, the Articles government accomplished significant achievements. It directed the war effort to victory, negotiated the Treaty of Paris of 1783, settled state land claims, and organized the western territories under the Land Ordinance of 1785 and the Northwest Ordinance of July 13, 1787, which established the procedure for admitting new states on equal footing and prohibited slavery north of the Ohio River. Its weaknesses, especially the inability to tax and the unwieldy amendment requirement, drove the Constitutional Convention of 1787 to draft a stronger replacement.