Editing Articles of Confederation (section)

==Congress under the Articles==

===Army===
Under the Articles, Congress had the authority to regulate and fund the [[Continental Army]], but it lacked the power to compel the States to comply with requests for either troops or funding. This left the military vulnerable to inadequate funding, supplies, and even food.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Carp |first=E. Wayne |title=To Starve the Army at Pleasure: Continental Army Administration and American Political Culture, 1775–1783 |date=1980 |publisher=[[UNC Press Books]] |isbn=9780807842690}}</ref> Further, although the Articles enabled the states to present a unified front when dealing with the European powers, as a tool to build a centralized war-making government, they were largely a failure; Historian Bruce Chadwick wrote:

{{Blockquote|George Washington had been one of the very first proponents of a strong federal government. The army had nearly disbanded on several occasions during the winters of the war because of the weaknesses of the Continental Congress. ... The delegates could not draft soldiers and had to send requests for regular troops and militia to the states. Congress had the right to order the production and purchase of provisions for the soldiers, but could not force anyone to supply them, and the army nearly starved in several winters of war.{{sfn|Chadwick|2005|p=469}}}}

Phelps wrote:
{{Blockquote|It is hardly surprising, given their painful confrontations with a weak central government and the sovereign states, that the former generals of the Revolution as well as countless lesser officers strongly supported the creation of a more muscular union in the 1780s and fought hard for the ratification of the Constitution in 1787. Their wartime experiences had nationalized them.{{sfn|Phelps|2001|pp=165–66}}}}

The Continental Congress, before the Articles were approved, had promised soldiers a pension of half pay for life. However Congress had no power to compel the states to fund this obligation, and as the war wound down after the victory at Yorktown the sense of urgency to support the military was no longer a factor. No progress was made in Congress during the winter of 1783–84. General [[Henry Knox]], who would later become the first [[Secretary of War]] under the Constitution, blamed the weaknesses of the Articles for the inability of the government to fund the army. The army had long been supportive of a strong union.{{sfn|Puls|2008|pp=174–76}}

Knox wrote:
{{Blockquote|The army generally have always reprobated the idea of being thirteen armies. Their ardent desires have been to be one continental body looking up to one sovereign. ... It is a favorite toast in the army, "A hoop to the barrel" or "Cement to the Union".{{sfn|Puls|2008|p=177}}}}

As Congress failed to act on the petitions, Knox wrote to Gouverneur Morris, four years before the Philadelphia Convention was convened, "As the present Constitution is so defective, why do not you great men call the people together and tell them so; that is, to have a convention of the States to form a better Constitution."{{sfn|Puls|2008|p=177}}

Once the war had been won, the [[Continental Army]] was largely disbanded. A very small [[First American Regiment|national force]] was maintained to man the frontier forts and to protect against [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|Native American]] attacks. Meanwhile, each of the states had an army (or militia), and 11 of them had navies. The wartime promises of bounties and land grants to be paid for service were not being met. In 1783, [[George Washington]] defused the [[Newburgh conspiracy]], but riots by unpaid [[Pennsylvania]] veterans forced Congress to leave Philadelphia temporarily.{{sfn|Lodge|1893|p=98}}

The Congress from time to time during the Revolutionary War requisitioned troops from the states. Any contributions were voluntary, and in the debates of 1788, the Federalists (who supported the proposed new Constitution) claimed that state politicians acted unilaterally, and contributed when the Continental army protected their state's interests. The Anti-Federalists claimed that state politicians understood their duty to the Union and contributed to advance its needs. Dougherty (2009) concludes that generally the States' behavior validated the Federalist analysis. This helps explain why the Articles of Confederation needed reforms.{{sfn|Dougherty|2009|pp=47–74}}

===Foreign policy===
{{Main|Confederation Period#Foreign affairs}}
The 1783 [[Treaty of Paris (1783)|Treaty of Paris]], which ended hostilities with Great Britain, languished in Congress for several months because too few delegates were present at any one time to constitute a [[quorum]] so that it could be ratified. Afterward, the problem only got worse as Congress had no power to enforce attendance. Rarely did more than half of the roughly sixty delegates attend a session of Congress at the time, causing difficulties in raising a [[quorum]]. The resulting paralysis embarrassed and frustrated many American nationalists, including George Washington. Many of the most prominent national leaders, such as Washington, [[John Adams]], [[John Hancock]], and [[Benjamin Franklin]], retired from public life, served as foreign delegates, or held office in state governments; and for the general public, local government and self-rule seemed quite satisfactory. This served to exacerbate Congress's impotence.{{sfn|Ferling|2003|pp=255–59}}

Inherent weaknesses in the confederation's frame of government also frustrated the ability of the government to conduct foreign policy. In 1786, [[Thomas Jefferson]], concerned over the failure of Congress to fund an American naval force to confront the [[Barbary pirates]], wrote in a [[Proposals for concerted operation among the powers at war with the Pyratical states of Barbary|diplomatic correspondence]] to [[James Monroe]] that, "It will be said there is no money in the treasury. There never will be money in the treasury till the Confederacy shows its teeth."<ref>{{Cite web |editor-last=Boyd |editor-first=Julian P. |title=Editorial Note: Jefferson's Proposed Concert of Powers against the Barbary States |url=https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-10-02-0424-0001 |access-date=April 21, 2018 |website=Founders Online |publisher=[[National Archives]] |location=Washington, D.C. |archive-date=April 21, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180421232327/https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-10-02-0424-0001 |url-status=live }} [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 10, June 22–December 31, 1786, ed. Julian P. Boyd. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1954, pp. 560–566]</ref>

Furthermore, the 1786 [[Jay–Gardoqui Treaty]] with [[Spain]] also showed weakness in foreign policy. In this treaty, which was never ratified, the United States was to give up rights to use the [[Mississippi River]] for 25 years, which would have economically strangled the settlers west of the [[Appalachian Mountains]]. Finally, due to the Confederation's military weakness, it could not compel the [[British army]] to leave frontier forts which were on American soil—and which, in 1783, the British promised to leave, but which they delayed leaving pending U.S. implementation of other provisions such as ending action against [[Loyalist (American Revolution)|Loyalist]]s and allowing them to seek compensation. This incomplete British implementation of the Treaty of Paris would later be resolved by the implementation of [[Jay's Treaty]] in 1795 after the federal Constitution came into force.

===Taxation and commerce===
Under the Articles of Confederation, the central government's power was kept quite limited. The Confederation Congress could make decisions but lacked enforcement powers. Implementation of most decisions, including modifications to the Articles, required unanimous approval of all thirteen state legislatures.{{Sfnp|Jensen|1950|page=[https://archive.org/details/newnationhistory0000jens_x8b5/page/177 177–233]}}

Congress was denied any powers of [[taxation]]: it could only request money from the states. The states often failed to meet these requests in full, leaving both Congress and the Continental Army chronically short of money. As more money was printed by Congress, the continental dollars depreciated. In 1779, George Washington wrote to [[John Jay]], who was serving as the president of the Continental Congress, "that a wagon load of money will scarcely purchase a wagon load of provisions."{{sfn|Stahr|2005|p=105}} Mr. Jay and the Congress responded in May by requesting $45&nbsp;million from the States. In an appeal to the States to comply, Jay wrote that the taxes were "the price of liberty, the peace, and the safety of yourselves and posterity."{{sfn|Stahr|2005|p=107}} He argued that Americans should avoid having it said "that America had no sooner become independent than she became insolvent" or that "her infant glories and growing fame were obscured and tarnished by broken contracts and violated faith."{{sfn|Stahr|2005|pp=107–8}} The States did not respond with any of the money requested from them.

Congress had also been denied the power to regulate either foreign trade or [[interstate commerce]]{{Clarify|date=March 2022|reason=This sentence seems to contradict the above text about Congress powers to regulate foreign commerce (section Article summaries).}} and, as a result, all of the States maintained control over their own trade policies. The states and the Confederation Congress both incurred large debts during the Revolutionary War, and how to repay those debts became a major issue of debate following the War. Some States paid off their war debts and others did not. Federal assumption of the states' war debts became a major issue in the deliberations of the Constitutional Convention.

===Accomplishments===
{{Further|Admission to the Union#Articles of Confederation}}
{{More citations needed|section|date=April 2020}}

Nevertheless, the Confederation Congress did take two actions with long-lasting impact. The [[Land Ordinance of 1785]] and [[Northwest Ordinance]] created territorial government, set up protocols for the [[admission to the Union|admission of new states]] and the division of land into useful units, and set aside land in each township for [[public domain (land)|public use]]. This system represented a sharp break from imperial colonization, as in Europe, and it established the precedent by which the national (later, federal) government would be sovereign and expand westward—as opposed to the existing states doing so under their sovereignty.{{sfn|Satō|1886|p=352}}

The [[Land Ordinance of 1785]] established both the general practices of land surveying in the west and northwest and the land ownership provisions used throughout the later westward expansion beyond the [[Mississippi River]]. Frontier lands were surveyed into the now-familiar squares of land called the [[township]] (36 square miles), the [[Section (United States land surveying)|section]] (one square mile), and the quarter section (160 [[acre]]s). This system was carried forward to most of the States west of the Mississippi (excluding areas of [[Texas]] and [[California]] that had already been surveyed and divided up by the [[Spanish Empire]]). Then, when the [[Southern Homestead Act of 1866|Homestead Act]] was enacted in 1867, the quarter section became the basic unit of land that was granted to new settler-farmers.

The [[Northwest Ordinance]] of 1787 noted the agreement of the original states to give up [[state cession|northwestern land claims]], organized the [[Northwest Territory]] and laid the groundwork for the eventual creation of new states. Although it did not happen under the articles, the land north of the [[Ohio River]] and west of the (present) western border of Pennsylvania ceded by [[Massachusetts]], [[Connecticut]], [[New York (state)|New York]], [[Pennsylvania]], and [[Virginia]], eventually became the states of [[Ohio]], [[Indiana]], [[Illinois]], [[Michigan]], and [[Wisconsin]], and the part of [[Minnesota]] that is east of the Mississippi River. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 also made great advances in the abolition of slavery. New states admitted to the union in this territory would never be slave states.

No new states were admitted to the Union under the Articles of Confederation. The Articles provided for a blanket acceptance of the [[Province of Quebec (1763–1791)|Province of Quebec]] (referred to as "Canada" in the Articles) into the United States if it chose to do so. It did not, and the subsequent Constitution carried no such special provision of admission. Additionally, ordinances to admit [[State of Franklin|Frankland]] (later modified to Franklin), [[Kentucky]], and [[Vermont Republic|Vermont]] to the Union were considered, but none were approved.

===Presidents of Congress===
{{Further|President of the Continental Congress}}

Under the Articles of Confederation, the presiding officer of Congress—referred to in many official records as ''President of the United States in Congress Assembled''—chaired the [[Committee of the States]] when Congress was in recess, and performed other administrative functions. He was not, however, an executive in the way the later [[president of the United States]] is a chief executive, since all of the functions he executed were under the direct control of Congress.{{sfn|Jensen|1959|pp=178–79}}

There were 10 presidents of Congress under the Articles. The first, [[Samuel Huntington (statesman)|Samuel Huntington]], had been serving as president of the Continental Congress since September 28, 1779.

{| class="wikitable sortable"

|-
! President
! Term

|-
| data-sort-value="Huntington, Samuel"|[[Samuel Huntington (statesman)|Samuel Huntington]]
| {{Sort|01|March 1, 1781}}{{Snd}}July 10, 1781

|-
| data-sort-value="McKean, Thomas"|[[Thomas McKean]]
| {{Sort|02|July 10, 1781}}{{Snd}}November 5, 1781

|-
| data-sort-value="Hanson, John"|[[John Hanson]]
| {{Sort|03|November 5, 1781}}{{Snd}}November 4, 1782

|-
| data-sort-value="Boudinot, Elias"|[[Elias Boudinot]]
| {{Sort|04|November 4, 1782}}{{Snd}}November 3, 1783

|-
| data-sort-value="Mifflin, Thomas"|[[Thomas Mifflin]]
| {{Sort|05|November 3, 1783}}{{Snd}}June 3, 1784

|-
| data-sort-value="Lee, Richard"| [[Richard Henry Lee]]
| {{Sort|06|November 30, 1784}}{{Snd}}November 4, 1785

|-
| data-sort-value="Hancock, John"|[[John Hancock]]
| {{Sort|07|November 23, 1785}}{{Snd}}June 5, 1786

|-
| data-sort-value="Gorham, Nathaniel"|[[Nathaniel Gorham]]
| {{Sort|08|June 6, 1786}}{{Snd}}November 3, 1786

|-
| data-sort-value="StClair, Arthur"|[[Arthur St. Clair]]
| {{Sort|09|February 2, 1787}}{{Snd}}November 4, 1787

|-
| data-sort-value="Griffin, Cyrus"|[[Cyrus Griffin]]
| {{Sort|10|January 22, 1788}}{{Snd}}November 15, 1788

|-
|}