Editing Articles of Confederation (section)

===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.