Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Articles of Confederation
Summary
The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union was an agreement among the 13 states of the United States, formerly the Thirteen Colonies, that served as the nation's first frame of government. It was debated by the Second Continental Congress at Independence Hall in Philadelphia between July 1776 and November 1777, and finalized by the Congress on November 15, 1777. It came into force on March 1, 1781, after being ratified by all 13 colonial states. A guiding principle of the Articles was the establishment and preservation of the independence and sovereignty of the states. The Articles consciously established a weak central government, affording it only those powers the former colonies had recognized as belonging to king and parliament. The document provided clearly written rules for how the states' league of friendship, known as the Perpetual Union, would be organized.
While waiting for all states to ratify, the Congress observed the Articles as it conducted business, directing the war effort, conducting diplomacy with foreign states, addressing territorial issues and dealing with Native American relations. Little changed procedurally once the Articles of Confederation went into effect, as ratification did little more than constitutionalize what the Continental Congress had been doing. That body was renamed the Congress of the Confederation; but most Americans continued to call it the Continental Congress, since its organization remained the same.
As the Confederation Congress attempted to govern the continually growing U.S. states, its delegates discovered that the limitations placed upon the central government (such as in assembling delegates, raising funds, and regulating commerce) rendered it ineffective at doing so. As the government's weaknesses became apparent, especially after Shays' Rebellion, some prominent political thinkers in the fledgling union began asking for changes to the Articles. Their hope was to create a stronger government. Initially, in September 1786, some states met to address interstate protectionist trade barriers between them.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.