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This week we will examine the founding of the American government. We will begin with the Articles of Confederation, a document which was approved by the Continental Congress in 1777 and implemented in 1781. The Articles created a new "league of friendship among otherwise sovereign states." At the head of the national government was a Confederation Congress, but there was no executive or judicial branch. Even so, Congress passed important pieces of legislation during its tenure, including the Land Ordinance of 1785 and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787.
By 1786, the weakness of the Confederation government was apparent to many of the nation's leading political figures. Men like James Madison and Alexander Hamilton complained that the government under the Articles did not have the power to raise taxes or enforce Congressional law. And, so, after a failed attempt in 1786 to revise the Articles, these men called the Constitutional Convention, which met in Philadelphia from May to September of 1787. Fifty-five men attended the Convention. Together, they drafted what remains the oldest written constitution in use today. We will examine the drafting of the Constitution and the debates over its ratification in detail.
I encourage each of you to watch the wonderful PBS video entitled, Liberty: The American Revolution. Episode six covers the material we will discuss this week. It may be found here. |
