The Articles of Confederation is definitely not considered to be a perfect piece of legislation in our nation's history but it acted as a stepping stone to allow the Constitution and other notable documents to take shape. The Articles went through many revisions before even being presented to the states for ratification, after Benjamin Franklin submitted the first draft in 1775 it was rejected, along with two others until the fourth draft, written by John Dickinson, was determined to be fit for ratification. Once ready for approval by the states, the Articles were submitted to the States in November of 1977 but were not ratified until March of 1781. The reason that approval took so long was that some states, like Virginia, had to be convinced to give up their claims their charters stretched to the sea, which would make them significantly more powerful than other states. Eventually, all of the states approved the Articles except for Maryland. The reason that each state had to approve the Articles after they were ratified is that the states needed to feel as if they were more independent but still powerful enough to fend off British rule.
Once created, the Articles of Confederation had a few restrictions and a lot of power over the states.
The restrictions included the inability for the federal government to levy taxes or regulate commerce. The powers of the Articles consisted of an ability to make war and peace, create an army and a navy, coin money, create a postal service, manage Indian affairs, create Admiralty courts and served as a last resort for disagreements between states. Also, under the Articles of Confederation states were prohibited from trying to become more powerful than another and people were allowed to move across state lines as they pleased. The Articles served as the governing document for the United States until 1786 when it was replaced at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.
Sources
https://www.history.com/topics/articles-of-confederation
Alex, I really liked your post because I am very weak on the difference between the Articles of confederation and the constitution. Using the source http://www.ushistory.org/gov/2b.asp I read more about the lack of powers of the Articles of confederation. I learned that one event that really showed the lack of power was Shay's Rebellion. Daniel Shay led a rebellion of farmers in Massachusetts that was eventually crushed but it showed the weakness of the federal government. This is not to be confused with the Whiskey Rebellion which Washington himself crushed showing the power of the government. Shay's Rebellion led Hamilton to call a meeting in 1787 in Philadelphia that you mentioned that led to the drafting of the constitution. The main difference between the constitution was that it placed a lot more power in the hands of the federal government. Using the source http://www.differencebetween.net/language/difference-between-articles-of-confederation-vs-constitution/ I found that this was because it created the executive branch and it also had the bill of rights.
ReplyDeleteGreat Post! I really liked how you gave some great background on the Articles and some of the institutions that were created from it. You are right that the Articles by no means was a perfect piece of legislation. I noticed that you said that Maryland was the only state that did not ratify the Articles. I was struck by this and decided to do some research. It turns out that Maryland did end up ratifying the Articles but not in 1778, rather in 1781. They only did this after Virginia agreed to give up its claims over land north of the Ohio river.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/maryland-finally-ratifies-articles-of-confederation
ALex, your post has made a nice recap of what the Articles of Confederation is and what exactly it did. As I was reading your post, I noticed how it bare a similar resemblance to the Bill of Rights created in 1789. Granted that the Articles of Confederation was mainly focused on the functions of the national government of the US and the Bill of Rights was focused on civil liberties to the individual American. But it is also worth noting that both talk about being independent from the government. AoC gave a brief description of undeniable individual rights, BoR elaborates on the ideas provided from the AoC, some of which remains to the current society. I agree that the AoC is not a masterpiece, I would dare to argue that it is not completely dead as some of it's pieces had reminded to this day.
ReplyDeleteA greatly informative piece about the Articles of the Confederation as well as an offering of criticism and an interpretation of its true purpose. Another fact that was not mentioned above is that there was a dispute between the Northern colonies and the Southern ones on taxes as relating to slavery. In his draft, Dickinson included that taxes are to be paid according to the amount of bodies that live in a state, slave or not, only exempting Native Americans. The South attempted to refute this, but ultimately the draft was ratified. It was also determined that in order to amend the Articles, the legislators of all 13 colonies must agree and act as one body to change the given topic.
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