Editing Articles of Confederation (section)

===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.