Lesson 8: What Were the Articles of Confederation, and Why Did Some Founders Want to Change Them?

Primary Sources


Annapolis Convention Report

The report of the Annapolis Convention of 1786, noting that delegates were unable to make sufficient progress toward a resolution, and called for a meeting the following May, which would be known as the Philadelphia Convention.

Link: http://bit.ly/pGKng


Articles of Confederation

The Articles of Confederation were, in effect, the first constitution of the United States. Drafted in 1777 by the same Continental Congress that passed the Declaration of Independence, the articles established a "firm league of friendship" between and among the 13 states.

Link: http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/artconf.asp


Constitution of the Iroquois League

The Iroquois nations' political union and democratic government has been credited as one of the influences on the Articles of Confederation and the United States Constitution.

Link: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/iroquois.html


Daniel Shays to Selectment of South Hadley, October 23, 1786

Shays's notice to his troops to be ready to fight within a minute's notice.

Link: http://bit.ly/r1wNd


Franklin

Franklin's Plan of July 1775

Link: https://goo.gl/Af1QEu


Governor Bowdoin's Proclamation, 1786

Governor Bowdoin issued this strongly worded proclamation after hundreds of Regulators prevented the Court of Common Pleas from opening in Northampton on August 29, 1786.

Link: http://bit.ly/OHl3V


Jefferson's letter to James Madison on January 30, 1787

Jefferson's letter to James Madison on January 30, 1787, expressing aloofness and justification for the series of protests led by Daniel Shays and a group of 1,200 farmers.

Link: http://www.earlyamerica.com/review/summer/letter.html


Land Ordinance of 1785

The goal of this ordinance was to raise money by selling land in the western part of the continent and to organize this area politically.

Link: http://www.in.gov/history/2478.htm


Madison's Letter to Washington, April 16, 1787

James Madison's thoughts on federal versus consolidated government, relative voting power of states, national supremacy and the executive.

Link: http://tinyurl.com/yknjb4x


Treaty of Paris

From Wikipedia: The Treaty of Paris, signed on September 3, 1783, ratified by the Congress of the Confederation on January 14, 1784 and by the King of Great Britain on April 9, 1784, formally ended the American Revolutionary War.

Link: http://bit.ly/FU5js


Vices of the Political System of the United States—James Madison, 1787

Madison's working paper outlining an agenda for the Constitutional Convention.

Link: http://tinyurl.com/yln7zkk