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.