Structure of government under the Articles

The Articles of Confederation were adopted by the Continental Congress in 1777 and took effect after Maryland became the final state to ratify them in 1781. They served as the first written constitution of the United States. Their design reflected revolutionary suspicion of distant, concentrated authority. Article II declared that each state retained its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, along with every power not expressly delegated to the United States. Article III described the union as a "firm league of friendship." The states created a national government, but they placed its central institution close to the state governments that had authorized it.

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Powers of the Confederation Congress

The Confederation Congress possessed meaningful national authority. Article IX assigned it the central roles in war and diplomacy: Congress could determine on peace and war, send and receive ambassadors, enter treaties and alliances, borrow money on the credit of the United States, issue bills of credit, establish post offices, regulate the value of coin, and set rules for captures at sea. It could appoint a commander in chief and request troops from the states. Congress also served as the final forum for interstate boundary and jurisdiction disputes through specially constituted panels. These were genuine powers, not suggestions that states were free to treat as legally irrelevant.

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Weaknesses of the national government

Revenue exposed the Confederation's central implementation problem. Congress could determine national expenses and assign each state's share under the formula in Article VIII, but state legislatures laid and collected the taxes. National officials could not impose a general federal tax directly on individuals. A requisition was therefore a lawful demand within the Confederation system, not merely a casual request, yet Congress lacked an effective way to collect the full amount when a state delayed or refused. Borrowing covered some immediate needs but created principal and interest that eventually required revenue. Incomplete payments weakened public credit, complicated military planning, and made national commitments less credible.

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State sovereignty

State sovereignty was the organizing premise of the Articles, not a minor detail. Article II reserved to each state every power not expressly delegated to the United States. State governments controlled ordinary taxation, property law, criminal law, commercial rules within their jurisdiction, and most direct relations with residents. State legislatures chose and paid congressional delegates, while one-state-one-vote protected political equality among the members of the union. For people who feared that a distant government might reproduce British abuses, this arrangement preserved local control and made national expansion of power deliberately difficult.

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Economic and interstate conflicts

Peace did not end the new nation's economic emergency. The Revolution left public debts, disrupted trade, and demands for payment from soldiers and lenders. States faced their own fiscal pressures and chose different responses. Some imposed heavy taxes or sought payment in scarce hard money; some issued paper currency or enacted debtor-relief measures; creditors pressed for repayment while indebted farmers, merchants, and other residents sought time or easier terms. These disputes reflected genuine conflicts over who would bear the costs of independence. They also crossed state lines because creditors, goods, currencies, and commercial retaliation did not stop at a border.

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Shays’ Rebellion

Shays' Rebellion grew from severe postwar conflict in Massachusetts during 1786 and 1787. Rural communities faced taxes, private debts, court judgments, and the threat of foreclosure or imprisonment. Protesters, many of them farmers and some of them Revolutionary veterans, organized to stop courts from hearing debt and property cases. Daniel Shays became the best-known leader, but the movement was broader than one man and its participants did not share a single demand. Calling the episode merely a riot erases its economic and political setting; calling it a unified revolution overstates the protesters' common program.

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Reasons for replacing the Articles

Reformers first tried to strengthen the Confederation without discarding it. Congress proposed changes that would have supplied a limited national impost and more dependable revenue, but Article XIII required every state legislature to confirm an amendment. Broad support was therefore insufficient. Commercial disagreements prompted the 1785 Mount Vernon meeting between Virginia and Maryland and the interstate gathering at Annapolis in 1786. Only five states were represented at Annapolis, yet its report called for a wider convention to consider defects affecting the union. These steps show a reform movement developing before Shays' Rebellion reached its climax.

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