Founding Document

The Articles of Confederation

Ratified March 1, 1781 · Superseded 1789 · (1781–1789)

America's first constitution — replaced before it was fully tried

Trust Score 99 · Primary Source · Near-Complete Coverage

The Articles of Confederation were America's first constitution — drafted in 1777 by a committee of the Second Continental Congress chaired by John Dickinson, debated for four years while the Revolution raged, and finally ratified when Maryland relented on March 1, 1781. They bound thirteen jealous, sovereign states into "a firm league of friendship" — deliberately not a nation, because their framers had just gone to war against an overweening central power and had no intention of building another.

The design was principled and nearly ungovernable. Congress could not tax — only request funds the states routinely declined to send. It could not regulate commerce, so the states levied tariffs against one another and printed thirteen competing currencies. It had no executive to enforce its resolutions and no court to settle its quarrels. Yet under this frail instrument the country won its war, ratified the Treaty of Paris, and passed the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 — the greatest single act of the Confederation era. Then Shays' Rebellion exposed what the requisition system could not do, and the founders returned to Philadelphia to write a second draft.

Converse with the Document

Thirteen Articles. A League of Friendship.

Speak directly with the Articles of Confederation — the compact that governed the United States from 1781 to 1789. Ask why its framers gave Congress no power to tax, no power over commerce, and no means of enforcing its own resolutions — and whether, in 1777, those omissions were folly or wisdom. Ask what the Northwest Ordinance accomplished, why Shays' Rebellion could not be answered, and whether the Convention that replaced it acted within its mandate or outside it.

The Articles speak with the precision of a legal instrument and the candor of a superseded first draft — one that held thirteen mutually suspicious states together long enough for them to discover what they actually needed, and that made the second draft possible.

"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."

State Sovereignty League of Friendship No Power to Tax Requisitions One State, One Vote Northwest Ordinance Shays' Rebellion Unanimity Rule Perpetual Union Confederation

Drawn from the Primary Corpus

Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union (1781) — Articles I through XIII
The Northwest Ordinance (1787) — passed under the Confederation Congress
Journals of the Continental Congress (1777–1789)
The Federalist Papers on the Defects of the Confederation — Nos. 15–22 (1787–1788)