Context
As the first official document that defined the
United States government, the Articles of
Confederation both reflected the ideals and
philosophies of the American Revolution and
highlighted the practical difficulties of
democratic government.
The idea of a union formed for mutual defense began
in 1643 with the founding of the first colonial
union, called the New England Confederation.
Recognizing that a union would help the colonists
to defend themselves against the threat of Indian
attacks and French invasion, this confederation
established the idea that unified strength was an
effective power on the North American continent.
As the governments of the colonies evolved and
established more power, they continued to rely on
unions for mutual defense. At the beginning of the
French and Indian War in 1754, additional
colonies attended the Albany Congress for the purpose of
forming a unified defense strategy against the
French and Indians. The colonists learned an
important lesson from this experience, and began to
instinctively rely on the power of unions any time
their rights were abused during the pre-Revolutionary era.
The governing body that eventually created the Articles of
Confederation was based on this tradition of
defensive unions, but was formed in a time of
peace--not actually preparing for war. However, the
Second Continental Congress, originally formed
for the purpose of mutual defense of the thirteen colonies,
suddenly found itself in 1776 waging a full-scale
war and governing a nation.
Congress managed to successfully direct the
Revolution effort
and to prevent domestic anarchy by relying
more on improvisation than on any codified system
of laws. Consensus worked for the thirteen states
when faced with the imposing task of defeating the
British; however, when Congress approached the
topic of drafting a constitution that would serve
to direct the affairs of the nation, numerous
controversies erupted over how to establish a
balance of power between individual states and a
national governing body. Despite all their
experience in organizing unions for mutual defense,
the representatives had no reliable source from
which they could draft the plans for a new and
democratic form of government.
The source of most of the controversies lay in that
Americans held sharply contrasting interpretations
of the implications of the American Revolution.
Radicals believed that the purpose of the
Revolution was to establish a government, unlike
any other at the time, that placed power solidly in
the hands of the people. Therefore, they
interpreted the confederation to be like past
unions, given power solely to provide for mutual
defense. Sovereignty, they claimed, belonged
close to the people in the hands of state
governments, not in a strong central government.
Conservatives, on the other hand, viewed the
Revolution as an opportunity to remove control from
a foreign elite and place it solidly in the hands
of a centralized government in America. Like
radicals, they believed in the importance of mutual
defense, but wanted to extend the union's power to
be able to manage all affairs of the new nation.
The shape of the new government, as established by
the Articles of Confederation was largely
influenced by the radicals' point of view. The
Articles were submitted to the states for
ratification in the midst of war with Great
Britain. Most Americans greatly feared the
possibility that their new American government
would be as strong and as destructive to individual
rights as the British one, and that the war would thus
have been fought in vain. The government
established and approved by the people in 1781,
therefore, consisted of a national congress with
extremely limited powers and thirteen independent
state governments that held the balance of power.
The significance of the Articles of
Confederation is that it provided enough of a
structure for the nation to survive during those
eight years, while the American people learned
about the requirements to run an effective national
government. The weaknesses inherent in the
Articles of Confederation eventually
provided the means for change.
In the midst of frustrating economic chaos and
political confusion, individuals began to assert
their own power against ineffective and unfair
government created by the Articles. In Shays' Rebellion,
Massachusetts farmers rebelled against a state legislature that
seemed no different than Parliament in its
unwillingness to change tax regulations and debt-
repayment laws. Respected leaders from many states
met at the Annapolis Convention in 1786 to try
to determine a uniform system of commerce amongst
themselves in the absence of a national policy. In
both cases, Americans had realized that their
liberties were threatened when not protected by a
strong enough central government.
When delegates of the states met to revise the
Articles of Confederation at the Constitutional
Convention in May of 1787, they had gathered
enough experience about the intricacies of government to more clearly define
what the next government of the nation should and
would do. It would not abandon the ideas of the American
Revolution by placing too much power in the hands
of the central government, but it also would not
allow numerous competing government systems to tear
the union apart.
Once again, the concept of union had evolved. Having learned from the failures
of the government created by the Articles of Confederation, the delegates
at the Constitutional Convention created a government that not only provided
mutual defense against outside threats, it also created a central government
strong enough to reign in and withstand internal threats and represent unified
national interests to the world.
