Читать книгу Keeping the Republic - Christine Barbour - Страница 71

In 1777 the Continental Congress met to try to come up with a constitution, or a framework that established the rules for the new government. The Articles of Confederation, our first constitution, created the kind of government the founders, fresh from their colonial experience, preferred. The rules set up by the Articles of Confederation show that the states jealously guarded their power. Having just won their independence from one large national power, the last thing they wanted to do was create another. They were also extremely wary of one another, and much of the debate over the Articles of Confederation reflected wide concern that the rules not give any states preferential treatment. (See the Appendix for the text of the Articles of Confederation.)

constitution the rules that establish a government

Articles of Confederation the first constitution of the United States (1777), creating an association of states with weak central government

The Articles established a “firm league of friendship” among the thirteen American states, but they did not empower a central government to act effectively on behalf of those states. The Articles were ultimately replaced because, without a strong central government, they were unable to provide the economic and political stability that the founders wanted. Even so, under this set of rules, some people were better off and some problems, namely the resolution of boundary disputes and the political organization of new territories, were handled extremely well.