
			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. 

