In the summer of 1776, Congress was attempting to do two things at once: break apart an empire and construct a political union in its place.
The first task produced the Declaration of Independence, but delegates still had to decide what obligations the newly independent states owed one another. They needed a way to raise troops, borrow money, negotiate with foreign powers, settle disputes, and direct a common war effort. At the same time, they were reluctant to create another distant government capable of overruling local authority.
That conflict shaped the first draft of the Articles of Confederation, presented to Congress on July 12, 1776.
The document began as a wartime plan for cooperation. Over the months that followed, it evolved into a more guarded compact that placed increasing emphasis on the sovereignty of the individual states and increasingly narrow limits on the authority of Congress.
The Work Began Before Independence Was Declared
The colonies had already spent years learning how to cooperate. Delegates gathered at the First Continental Congress in 1774 to coordinate a response to British policies. When war began at Lexington and Concord in April 1775, the Second Continental Congress assumed responsibilities that increasingly resembled those of a national government.
Congress created the Continental Army, appointed George Washington as its commander, issued paper currency, managed military supplies, communicated with foreign powers, and attempted to coordinate the war effort among thirteen colonial governments.
However, Congress possessed no written constitution granting it those powers. Its authority depended largely upon necessity, cooperation, and the willingness of the colonies to comply with its requests.
Benjamin Franklin had proposed a plan of confederation as early as July 1775. His proposal envisioned a union called the “United Colonies of North America,” governed by a congress empowered to address matters of common defense, diplomacy, commerce, and western settlement. Congress did not adopt it, in part because many delegates were not yet prepared to create a permanent political union or to abandon the possibility of reconciliation with Britain.
Three Parts of the Same Revolutionary Plan
On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia introduced a resolution proposing three closely connected actions:
- that the colonies declare themselves free and independent states;
- that measures be taken to form foreign alliances;
- and that a plan of confederation be prepared and sent to the colonies for approval.
Congress appointed three committees on June 11 to address those objectives. One drafted the Declaration of Independence. Another prepared a model treaty for foreign relations. The third was assigned to develop a structure of confederation.
The Articles of Confederation were intended to explain how the newly independent states would relate to one another. Congress appointed one delegate from each colony to the confederation committee. John Dickinson, a respected Pennsylvania lawyer and political writer, became its leading draftsman.
Dickinson had opposed declaring independence when he believed the colonies were not sufficiently prepared for the consequences. His caution placed him in the minority during the final independence debates, but it did not reflect a lack of commitment to the American cause. He had long argued against Parliament’s efforts to tax and govern the colonies without their consent, and he would soon serve in the military.
The First Objective: Hold the States Together
The draft presented on July 12 opened by giving the confederation a name:
“The United States of America.”
The phrase carried enormous significance. The colonies were not just coordinating their resistance to Britain but also attempting to define a continuing political relationship.
Dickinson’s draft described that relationship as a “firm League of Friendship” formed for common defense, the security of liberty, and the general welfare. The colonies pledged to assist one another against attacks made under any pretext, including disputes involving sovereignty, religion, or trade.
Its first and most urgent objective was therefore survival.
The states were fighting one of the most powerful empires in the world, and no single state could reasonably expect to win that struggle alone. Under Dickinson’s plan, Congress would have authority over peace and war, treaties and alliances, ambassadors, coinage, postal routes, naval forces, military officers, and certain disputes between the colonies. It would also establish rules concerning captured property and piracy at sea.
The Second Objective: Preserve Local Self-Government
The same Americans who needed a national union were deeply wary of concentrated political power.
They had just accused the British government of exercising authority without proper representation, interfering in colonial legislatures, maintaining standing armies, and placing power too far from the people it governed. Few delegates wished to replace a distant Parliament with an equally intrusive American government.
Dickinson’s draft therefore attempted to distinguish between matters that belonged to the union and those that should remain under local control.
Each colony would retain its laws, rights, customs, and authority over its internal government, except where those matters interfered with the terms of the Confederation. Congress would manage shared concerns, while the colonies would continue governing most aspects of daily political life.
That balance (common action without complete consolidation) became one of the central objectives of the Articles. It also became one of the greatest sources of disagreement.
How much authority could Congress hold before the states ceased to be meaningfully independent? How little authority could it possess before the union became ineffective?
The delegates had no established American model to follow. They were attempting to create a government strong enough to win a war but limited enough to preserve the liberty for which the war was being fought.
The Third Objective: Speak to the World as One Nation
Independence changed the colonies’ place in international affairs.
Foreign governments could not be expected to negotiate thirteen separate alliances with thirteen states pursuing different policies. The United States needed a common diplomatic voice if it hoped to receive recognition, military assistance, trade agreements, or loans.
Dickinson’s draft prohibited individual colonies from making treaties or alliances without congressional approval. Congress would send and receive ambassadors and determine questions of peace and war.
This national authority was especially important in 1776. American leaders understood that French support could alter the course of the war, but France needed evidence that the new nation could act collectively and honor its agreements.
The Confederation was therefore intended not only to unite the states internally, but also to present the United States to the wider world as a credible political entity.
The Fourth Objective: Manage Disputes Among the States
The states shared a common enemy but did not always share common interests.
Their boundaries were uncertain. Their colonial charters sometimes overlapped. Several claimed enormous stretches of western territory, while others had fixed borders and no comparable claims. States could impose duties on goods passing through their ports, issue their own money, and pursue policies that affected their neighbors.
Dickinson’s draft gave Congress authority to settle disputes between states involving boundaries, jurisdiction, and other causes. It also proposed federal authority over certain western lands, including the ability to define the limits of states with expansive charter claims and establish new colonies in the West.
That proposal addressed one of the most contentious issues before Congress: who would control the territory beyond the Appalachian Mountains?
States such as Virginia, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia asserted western claims based on old charters. States with limited boundaries argued that those lands had been secured through the shared blood and expense of the war and should benefit the entire union.
The issue would delay ratification for years.
Representation: Were the States Equal?
One of the most difficult questions was how the states should vote in Congress.
Should each state have an equal voice? Or should representation reflect population and financial contribution?
Delegates from larger states argued that it was unjust for a small state to possess the same voting power as a state contributing far more people, money, and soldiers. Smaller states feared that population-based voting would allow Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts to dominate the union.
Thomas Jefferson’s notes on the debates preserve the intensity of the disagreement. Some delegates described the states as separate political communities entering a partnership. Others argued that the Confederation should transform them into a more unified political body.
The debate touched the heart of the project. Were the United States fundamentally a collection of states, or one people acting through a national government?
The final Articles settled the matter in favor of state equality. Each state could send between two and seven delegates, but each state possessed only one vote.
That compromise protected smaller states, though it also meant that political power in Congress did not reflect population. The same tension would return at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 and eventually produce a House of Representatives based on population and a Senate in which every state had equal representation.
How Would the Union Pay Its Bills?
Congress could declare war, negotiate treaties, borrow money, and authorize military forces... but none of those powers mattered without revenue.
The delegates agreed that common expenses should be paid from a common treasury but disagreed over how each state’s contribution should be calculated.
Dickinson’s draft proposed that expenses be divided according to population, counting inhabitants of every “age, sex and quality,” except Native people who did not pay taxes. The wording exposed the difficult political and moral realities of a union that proclaimed liberty while allowing human slavery to continue.
Delegates debated whether enslaved people should be counted when calculating a state’s contribution. Southern states objected that enslaved laborers should not be treated as producing wealth in the same manner as free inhabitants. Other delegates argued that enslaved people contributed directly to agricultural production and therefore to a state’s resources.
Congress ultimately abandoned population as the measure. The final Articles based each state’s contribution on the assessed value of privately held land and improvements.
That solution proved difficult to administer. More importantly, Congress still received no authority to collect taxes directly. It could determine how much money was needed and request each state’s share, but it depended on state legislatures to provide it.
During the war, patriotic urgency sometimes encouraged compliance. Afterward, states often ignored or only partially fulfilled congressional requests.
How Dickinson’s Plan Changed
The draft presented in July 1776 was debated, revised, postponed, and reconsidered for more than a year.
Some changes strengthened the principle of state sovereignty. Dickinson’s draft had said that each colony retained control over its internal affairs where they did not interfere with the Confederation. The final version stated the principle far more explicitly:
Each state retained its “sovereignty, freedom and independence,” along with every power not expressly delegated to Congress.
This wording placed clear limits on national authority- Congress possessed only the powers specifically granted to it by the Articles.
Other elements of Dickinson’s original plan were reduced or removed. His draft envisioned a council of state that could conduct important executive business while Congress was not in session. The final version instead created a more limited “Committee of the States,” composed of one delegate from each state and permitted to exercise only those powers Congress specifically assigned to it.
Dickinson had proposed broader congressional authority over western boundaries and lands, but the final Articles did not resolve the western land dispute as decisively. States continued pressing their competing claims, and Maryland refused to ratify the Confederation until states with extensive western claims began surrendering them for the common benefit.
Even the language of the document reflected the political transformation taking place. Dickinson’s July draft referred primarily to “colonies.” The final Articles referred to “states”, political communities that had asserted sovereignty and now had to decide how much of it they were willing to share.
The original objective had been to create a durable union capable of common defense and coordinated government. That objective became more cautious through revision. The final document preserved cooperation, but it placed greater emphasis on the independence of each state and narrower limits on Congress.
Adoption, Ratification, and Delay
Congress approved the revised Articles of Confederation on November 15, 1777, and sent them to the states for ratification.
The war did not pause while the constitutional process continued. Congress and the states operated under an improvised revolutionary government even though the Articles had not yet formally taken effect.
Ratification required unanimous approval from all thirteen states. Most acted within the following two years, but disputes over western lands delayed completion.
Maryland, which possessed no large western claim, argued that the disputed territory should become common property rather than increasing the wealth and power of a few states. It withheld ratification until New York ceded its western claims and Virginia indicated that it would do the same.
Maryland finally ratified the Articles on March 1, 1781. That day, the Confederation formally came into force. In Philadelphia, thirteen cannon were fired to mark the completion of the union.
By then, nearly five years had passed since Dickinson’s committee presented its first draft.
What the Articles Accomplished
The Articles are often remembered primarily for their weaknesses but should not be dismissed as a failure.
They provided the first written national framework of government for the United States. Under their authority, Congress managed diplomacy, oversaw the closing years of the Revolutionary War, ratified the alliance with France, negotiated the Treaty of Paris, and secured international recognition of American independence.
The Confederation government also addressed the future of western territory. The Land Ordinance of 1785 established a system for surveying and selling western lands. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 created a process through which territories could become states on equal footing with the original thirteen.
That principle was enormously important. The West would not just remain a collection of subordinate colonies controlled by the older states but could be organized into new states that would eventually enter the union as equals.
The Articles therefore helped carry the United States through the transition from revolution to recognized nationhood.
Where the Framework Fell Short
The weaknesses of the Articles became more apparent after the immediate pressure of war diminished.
Congress could request money but could not compel states to pay. It could negotiate treaties but struggled to ensure that states followed them. It lacked authority to regulate interstate or foreign commerce. States imposed competing trade restrictions, issued their own currencies, and sometimes pursued policies that undermined one another.
There was no separate national executive to enforce congressional decisions and no general federal court system to interpret national law. Major measures required the approval of nine states, while amendments required unanimous consent.
The structure that had been designed to prevent national power from threatening the states also made it difficult for the national government to respond effectively to debt, trade disputes, diplomatic pressure, and unrest.
By the mid-1780s, many American leaders believed that the balance had tipped too far toward state independence. George Washington warned that the political fabric might fall. James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and others began pressing for a stronger union.
Delegates gathered at Annapolis in 1786 to discuss commercial problems, but only five states were represented. They called for a broader convention in Philadelphia the following year.
The delegates who assembled in May 1787 were officially instructed to revise the Articles of Confederation. Instead, they designed an entirely new Constitution.
A Cup for Revolutionary Philadelphia
In 1776, Philadelphia became the meeting place where independence was declared and the first plans for American government began to take shape.
Penn Street Tea pairs Gunpowder Mint tea with period-inspired artwork honoring the city’s central role in the founding era.
