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What Is The Purpose Of The Articles Of Confederation

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What Is The Purpose Of The Articles Of Confederation
The Articles of Confederation, a document ratified in 1781, established the functions of a nation government for the United States after it declared independence from Great Britain. The document was based on the principles fought for in the American Revolutionary War. It was signed between the thirteen original colonies and established them all as an alliance of sovereign states. The document served as the first constitution of the United States. A committee appointed by the Second Continental Congress in 1776 drafted the Articles, and an improved version of the documents was sent to all states for approval in the later months of 1777. All states had formally ratified the document in early 1781. The Articles of Confederation met an important …show more content…
The Treaty of Paris formally accepted independence among the thirteen American colonies and set the borders of the new nation at the Atlantic Ocean in the east, the Mississippi River in the west, and Florida in the south, and Canada in the north. The treaty, negotiated between Great Britain and the United States, ended the revolutionary war and was finally ratified in 1784. The Articles had helped to negotiate this the Treaty of Paris, as well as it did for the Northwest Ordinance. Along with negotiation, the Articles had produced two monumental pieces of legislature for the Northwest Ordinance. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 was seen as a revision of the Land Ordinance of 1784. The Land Ordinance enforced the process by which all new lands were to be divided into states and the qualifications of new states to enter into Congress. Three years later, with the Northwest Ordinance, some of the qualifications were altered and it was specifically states that a certain amount of land were to be reserved for public education, and that territory north of the Ohio River prohibited …show more content…
The document was faced with many issues, most of them relating to Congress. Among these issues was the lack of Congress to tax or create laws without the agreement of most to all states. There was no execute branch to enforce any of the laws that had been passed by Congress, and Congress could regulate neither foreign nor interstate trade. Nine of the thirteen states must have had to agree to the passing of a new law, and thirteen of the thirteen states must have agreed to the making of an amendment. One of the more concerning issues was that the states had so much power yet only a league of friendship, with no leader in charge and no state superior to another. The Articles began to be viewed as weak and although a weak government was requested to avoid tyranny, this governmental structure would not last forever due to all the complications that came along with

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