Articles of Confederation

In addition to creating the Declaration of Independence, the Second Continental Congress established a committee, headed by Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania author John Dickinson, whose responsibility was to plan out this newborn nation's system of government. Dickinson's idea of a strong central government appalled delegates on July 12, 1776 and consequently was given a major renovation before it was approved by Congress November 5, 1777. The Articles of Confederation allowed for a one-house legislature with one vote from each state. There was no single executive body with no power to veto the legislature's decisions. Taxation was not allowed, which caused wartime difficulties. An amendment was only allowed if a unanimous vote by the states passed it through. This weak government was ratified with much dissent on March 1, 1781 and lasted only six years before our Founding Fathers began to overhaul the ineffective Articles of Confederation.

John Dickinson

Divine, Robert A., T. H. Breen, George M. Fredrickson, and R. Hal Williams. America Past and Present. Revised Sixth Edition, AP* Edition . Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers Inc., 2003. 170-71. Print.

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