3.2: The Articles of Confederation

As far as the Americans were concerned, the Declaration of Independence severed their ties with Great Britain. That meant the 13 former colonies were now without a national government. War was looming, and they needed a new institutional structure to replace the one they had just cast off. Otherwise, the American war effort would be a disorganized mess, incapable of countering the military might of the British Empire.

In 1777, the Second Continental Congress — the same one that signed the Declaration of Independence — drafted the Articles of Confederation, America’s first constitution. The Articles, which went into effect in 1781 after being ratified by the states, established a barebones national government. Congress consisted of a single chamber, in which each state was represented by between two and seven delegates but had only one vote, regardless of its population. Nine of the 13 states had to vote for a law for it to pass, and amending the Articles themselves required the support of all 13. There was no independent executive or judiciary; Congress could (and did) elect presidents from among its members, but those presidents could only wield the limited powers Congress decided to grant them.

The Articles of Confederation were effective enough for the Americans to fend off the British army and secure their independence, but not by much. Congress tried to raise money through taxes to fund the war effort, but the collection of those taxes was up to the states, which often refused to pay some or all of what they owed. This left the Continental Army led by George Washington constantly low on vital supplies, forcing Washington himself to repeatedly beg Congress for enough money to feed, clothe, and arm his soldiers.

After the war, the Articles of Confederation continued to cause problems for the newly independent nation by failing to resolve conflicts between states. Sometimes these conflicts were territorial, with two states claiming the same piece of land and arguing over borders. Other times they were economic, with states owing money to other states and passing laws canceling their debts or printing worthless paper money to pay them off. Under the Articles, the national government lacked the authority to settle these disputes; even if Congress decided that one state was in the wrong, it had no power to enforce its decision.

The problems with the Articles were laid bare in 1786, when a Massachusetts farmer named Daniel Shays organized a debtors’ revolt. Shays, a former captain in the Continental Army, had left the army without ever receiving his five years’ worth of officer’s pay. Deep in debt, Shays led thousands of citizens in a protest to obstruct the proceedings of the Massachusetts state government, which was jailing debtors and confiscating their property. Congress tried and failed to generate enough tax money from the states for a military force to quash Shays’ Rebellion, which was eventually broken up by a combination of the Massachusetts state militia and a privately funded local militia.

Shays’ Rebellion forced America to reckon with the fundamental failing of the Articles of Confederation. The weak national government they had designed reflected their suspicion of centralized power, which they feared would lead to tyranny like what they had endured under British rule. They had good reason to be wary, but in their efforts to avoid a tyrannical government they had created an ineffectual one, powerless to resolve interstate disputes or respond to national emergencies. Shays’ Rebellion did not bring the fledgling nation crashing down, but without a major change to America’s system of government it was only a matter of time before some other crisis would.