Articles of Confederation

Context

At the end of the French and Indian War in 1763, the differences between the American colonies and Great Britain intensified. With the British treasury empty from the war, the British government sought to recuperate monetary losses by making the colonies pay taxes for their own defense while the colonials insisted that taxation without representation was unlawful. With the French threat removed, many colonists questioned why Great Britain was so involved in colonial affairs; the colonies could run their own affairs without British interference.

Several attempts at colonial union were made. In 1754 the meeting of the Albany Congress resulted in the Albany Plan of Union, which was never enacted or accepted. In 1774 Joseph Galloway, delegate from Pennsylvania, presented to the First Continental Congress his own plan of union for the colonies, but again nothing was done. In 1775 Benjamin Franklin, from Pennsylvania, also tried to interest the Congress in a union, and he wrote his version of the Articles of Confederation. No action was taken.

Two groups dominated colonial political thinking. The radicals—primarily small farmers, teachers, craftsmen, and the landless—believed in direct democracy: the control of the citizenry over the government. Only small political units could be directly controlled by the people, so the radicals believed in the colonial governments' power as the supreme authority. In addition, many radicals sought a change in the social and political order: redistribution of land, the payment of higher taxes by well-off people, and so forth. A strong, central government was not desirable because it would be too far removed from the control of the people. In contrast, the conservatives were large landowners, merchants, ship owners, and lawyers who wanted the repeal of repressive British laws; many did not want to see, at least in the beginning, the end of British rule. They believed in a strong central government for the colonies—Great Britain was the original central authority—and they did not want any change in the social order. In effect, the conservatives feared direct, democratic control embodied in the revolutionary state legislatures, and they looked to a strong central government to curb the power of the states to protect personal property and the rights of the wealthy.

By 1776, however, it became clear to most conservatives that rapprochement with Great Britain was impossible. A union between the colonies became necessary, therefore, not only to coordinate the war with Britain but also to serve as the contact between the colonies and the Spanish and French governments, from whom the colonies sought support. While debating the Declaration of Independence, the Second Continental Congress set up a commission to create a plan for union. John Dickinson of Pennsylvania and Delaware headed the committee to draft the Articles of Confederation. Dickinson wrote the draft that was later debated in Congress. The finished version of the Articles, which was ratified and went into effect on March 1, 1781, came from Dickinson's draft.