Topic 3.7: The Articles of Confederation

The Articles of Confederation

• written by the Second Continental Congress during the Revolutionary War; a weak form of central government was established under this document

• drafted by John Dickinson and modified by Congress, and later ratified in March 1781

• established a central government consisting of just one body, a congress

list of rights

• each state constitution began with a “bill” or “declaration” listing basic rights and freedoms that state officials could not infringe on

separation of powers

• the powers of government were given to three separate branches:

• 1) legislative powers to an elected two-house legislature

• 2) executive powers to an elected governor

• 3) judicial powers to a system of courts

• established as a safeguard against tyranny

voting

• the right to vote was extended to all White males who owned some property

• property requirement to vote was b/c of the assumption that property owners had a larger stake in government than the poor/property-less

Land Ordinance of 1785

• a policy for surveying and selling the western lands, setting aside one square-mile section of land in each 36 square-mile township for public education

Northwest Ordinance of 1787

• an ordinance that set the rules for creating new states, granting limited self-government to the developing territory and prohibiting slavery in the region

• passed for the large territory lying between the Great Lakes and the Ohio River

foreign affairs

• a weakness of the Articles of Confederation as the government was too weak to stop Britain from maintaining military outposts on the western frontier and restricting trade. it was also too weak to force states to restore property to Loyalists and repay debts to foreigners as required by the treaty

economic power

• another weakness of the AOC, as congress had no taxing power and could only request that the states donate money for national needs, and had no dependable source of revenue to repay the money it borrowed to fight the war

• unpaid debts led to limited credit and reduced foreign trade + the printing of worthless paper money added to the problem, causing an economic depression

internal conflicts

• the 13 states treated each other as rivals, placing tariffs and other restrictions on the movement of goods across state lines for economic advantage

• the weak government established by the AOC had no power to settle these disputes

Shay’s Rebellion

• an uprising led by Captain Daniel Shays in the summer of 1786, where farmers rebelled against high state taxes, imprisonment for debt, and lack of paper money — rebel farmers stopped the collection of taxes and forced the closing of debtors courts’

• Shay and his followers were later broken apart by the state militia of Massachusetts