the articles of confederation     and perpetual union 1777-1787 the critical period

The Articles of Confederation

and Perpetual Union

1777-1787The Critical Period

Structure of Government

• Articles created a unicameral legislature• Each state had one vote in Congress regardless of it’s size

or population• States selected 2-7 delegates for purposes of

representation• Powers of this Congress included: make war and peace,

regulate a postal system, weights and measurements, enter into treaties, appoint military officers, send and receive ambassadors, raise and equip a navy and create an army with financial support coming from the states, regulate Indian affairs, decide disputes among the states

Accomplishments

• Ended the war with the British negotiating the Treaty of Paris 1783

• Created a plan for the development of lands west of the Appalachian Mountains

-Land Ordinance 1785: a plan for the surveying of lands and the division of western lands-Northwest Ordinance 1787: established the principle that territories could be developed for statehood on an equal basis with the other established states.

BOTTOM LINE

•NO POWER OVER STATES•ARTICLES COULD NOT

PROTECT CITIZENS’ PROPERTY RIGHTS

“… there are important defects in the system of the Government… the defects, upon a closer examination, may be found greater and more numerous, than even these acts imply, from the embarrassments which characterize the present State of our national affairs, foreign and domestic…” J. Madison, 9/1786