The Articles of Confederation were adopted by the
Second Continental congress on this day in 1777. They were not
ratified until March 1, 1781 when Maryland became the last State to
ratify. In the short period between ratification, the war's ending,
and 1786, relations between States eroded to the point where our
Founder's began calling for a convention to correct the issues in the
Articles. In 1787 they succeeded in having a convention. That
convention wrote a new Constitution and proposed that it be ratified
by State conventions, thereby circumventing the unanimous agreement
requirement in the Articles of Confederation for any changes to that
constitution. U.S. Constitution was ratified June 21,1788.
After declaring independence from British rule, the
States each became sovereign nation states. But the Founders
understood that they needed some unity of action to succeed in their
war for independence and their attempts to gain recognition from other
countries.
Previous attempts at unifying the governments in
America, such as the Albany Plan, had failed as the various governing
powers did not want to lose any authority to any other government. The
idea of giving power to a new central government while fighting to
achieve independence from the current central government was repugnant
to many.
The Second Continental Congress created a committee
of one representative from each colony to create a form that the new
"national" government would take. The primary writer of the Articles
of Confederation was John Dickinson, a delegate from Delaware. After
much debate and alterations, the Articles were adopted by the Second
Continental Congress on November 15, 1777.
