Definition
Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation in November 1777, and they took effect in March 1781, after Maryland held out until Virginia and New York agreed to give Congress their western land claims. Americans had just rebelled against a distant Parliament and king, so they kept the new national government weak on purpose, and any power not expressly given to Congress stayed with the states. Congress had one house, where each of the thirteen states cast one vote; major laws needed nine states, amendments needed all thirteen, and there was no executive branch to enforce the laws and no national court system. Because Congress could not tax or regulate trade, it sent each state a bill called a requisition, and the states often paid little or nothing.
Why it matters on the AP exam
The Articles are the clearest example of the Revolution's fear of concentrated power, and their weaknesses explain many of the choices the framers made in the Constitution. Congress could not pay its debts, stop states from taxing one another's goods, force Britain out of its western forts or make Spain reopen the Mississippi, and it could not help put down Shays's Rebellion, so many leaders called for a stronger central government. The Articles also had successes, including ending the war with the Treaty of Paris of 1783 and passing the Land Ordinance of 1785 and the Northwest Ordinance. A common short-answer question asks students to explain one way the Constitution answered a weakness of the Articles, such as Congress's new powers to tax and to regulate trade among the states.
In the sources
“Thirteen Sovereignties pulling against each other, and all tugging at the federal head, will soon bring ruin on the whole”
Connections
- Shays's Rebellion: an uprising in 1786–1787 that Congress lacked the money to help put down
- Northwest Ordinance: the Confederation Congress's most lasting law, passed in July 1787
- Constitutional Convention: met in 1787 to revise the Articles and wrote a new constitution instead
- Federalism: the division of power between nation and states that replaced the Articles' league of states