Articles of Confederation
• Began writing June 1776
• Delivered to states for ratification by
Continental Congress November 1777
• In use from 1777
• Ratified 1781
• In use until 1788
Article II
• Article II. Each state retains its
sovereignty, freedom, and independence,
and every Power, Jurisdiction, and right,
which is not by this confederation
expressly delegated to the United States,
in Congress assembled.
Article III
• Article III. The said States hereby severally
enter into a firm league of friendship with
each other, for their common defense, the
security of their liberties, and their mutual
and general welfare, binding themselves
to assist each other, against all force
offered to, or attacks made upon them, or
any of them, on account of religion,
sovereignty, trade, or any other pretense
whatever.
Iroquois Confederation
The Great Binding Law,
Gayanashagowa
• We place you upon those seats, spread soft
with the feathery down of the globe thistle,
there beneath the shade of the spreading
branches of the Tree of Peace. There shall
you sit and watch the Council Fire of the
Confederacy of the Five Nations, and all the
affairs of the Five Nations shall be transacted
at this place before you, Adodarhoh, and your
cousin Lords, by the Confederate Lords of the
Five Nations.
• If any man or any nation outside the Five
Nations shall obey the laws of the Great Peace
and make known their disposition to the Lords
of the Confederacy, they may trace the Roots to
the Tree and if their minds are clean and they
are obedient and promise to obey the wishes of
the Confederate Council, they shall be
welcomed to take shelter beneath the Tree of
the Long Leaves.
Success
• 1. Won American War of Independence
• 2. Treaty of Paris with Great Britain 1783
• 3. Settled Western Land Claims,
– Land Ordinance 1785 created way for
territories to become states
• 4. Northwest Ordinances 1787 orderly
settlement
Land Ordinance of 1785
• States had to
give up their
western lands
• First public land
surveying
• 1/16 of every
township for
education
Freedom of Religion
• Art. 1. No person, demeaning himself in a
peaceable and orderly manner, shall ever
be molested on account of his mode of
worship or religious sentiments, in the said
territory.
• Northwest Ordinance 1787
Northwest Ordinance
1787
• How to allow territories to be states
– Michigan
– Ohio
– Wisconsin
– Illinois
– Indiana
• NO SLAVERY!
No slavery!
• Art. 6. There shall be neither slavery nor
involuntary servitude in the said territory,
otherwise than in the punishment of crimes
whereof the party shall have been duly
convicted: Provided, always, That any person
escaping into the same, from whom labor or
service is lawfully claimed in any one of the
original States, such fugitive may be lawfully
reclaimed and conveyed to the person claiming
his or her labor or service as aforesaid. 1787
Failure to deal with external
and internal threats
• 1. Barbary pirates demanded American
tribute
• 2. Shay’s Rebellion
BARBARY
PIRATES
• Also known as
OTTOMAN
CORSAIRS
• Treaty with Morocco
– 1787
– $20,000 tribute
– Made Americans think
about slavery
Hero: Stephen Decatur 1804
SHAY’S REBELLION
• DANIEL SHAY
• LEFT HIS FARM IN WESTERN
MASSACHUSETTS TO SERVE AS A
CAPTAIN IN THE REVOLUTIONARY
ARMY
• GOVERNMENT OF MASSACHUSETTS
SEIZED FARMS FOR DEBTS
• SHAY LED REBELLION
Shay’s Defeat
• ABOUT 1200 MARCHED TO
SPRINGFIELD WHERE THE STATE
ARSENAL WAS LOCATED.
• MILITIA WAS PRIVATELY HIRED AS
THE GOVERNMENT WAS UNABLE TO
ACT DIRECTLY UPON CITIZENS.
• SHAY WAS SENTENCED TO DEATH
FOR HIS PARTICIPATION IN THE
REBELLION.
Thomas Jefferson, Letter to James Madison, from Paris,
Jan. 30, 1787
>"I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a
good thing, and as necessary in the political
world as storms in the physical. Unsuccessful
rebellions, indeed, generally establish the
encroachments on the rights of the people which
have produced them. An observation of this
truth should render honest republican governors
so mild in their punishment of rebellions as not
to discourage them too much. It is a medicine
necessary for the sound health of the
government."
Chief Justice William Cushing, Supreme
Judicial Court, in the Hampshire Gazette, June
6, 1787
• "[I fear] evil minded
persons, leaders of the
insurgents...[waging war]
against the
Commonwealth, to bring
the whole government
and all the good people of
this state, if not continent,
under absolute command
and subjugation to one or
two ignorant,
unprincipled, bankrupt,
desperate individuals."
NO POWER
TO TAX
NO DIRECT
POWER OVER
CITIZENS
COULD NOT
ENFORCE LAWS
WEAKNESSES OF
THE ARTICLES
OF CONFEDERATION
COULD NOT
BE CHANGED WITHOUT
CONSENT OF ALL
13 STATES
COULD NOT
REGULATE TRADE