Logan+W


 * __[[file:Logan White Washington Essay.docx]]

Background__**

In 1775, the Second Continential Congress acted as the provisional national government that ran the war. In June of 1776, the Congress appointed a commitee to draft the Articles of Confederation, the first constitution of the United States of America. Later in November of 1777, the Congress sent the draft to the states for ratification. The document would not be fully effective until ratified by all thirteen of the colonies. Virginia was the first to ratify on December 16, 1777. The ratification process took several more years, stalled by states like Maryland, who ratified March 1, 1781. After the Articles were fully ratified, Congress became the Congress of Confedration.


 * __History__**

After The Treaty of Paris was signed, the United States was left independent, but with no form of government. The Second Continetial Congress made the Articles on November 15, 1777, to put down the nation's fondation. These Articles made a permanent confederation, but only gave Congress, the only federal institution, little power to regulate its finances or make sure that its resolutions were enforced. The Articles of Confederation were not strong and didn't give a good economical or political base for the new nation. However, these Articles did help make a stronger Constitution later on.

Even though many think that the Articles of Confederation were a huge failure, but they do think that the Land Ordinance of 1785 and Northwest Ordinance that setup an arangement for the making of new states, the division of land into homesteads and states, as well as setting aside land in each township for certain use. This system was a slight break from the imperial colonization, like there was in Europe, and made a new start and outline for the rest of American expansion throughout the rest of the 19th century.

Later on in the war, most people lived in confort. Blockade runners along with the prizes the privateers got added rich and prized items to shops in the north. Farmers found places to easily sell goods in the lines of the British and French armies. Speculators, or people who risk large amounts of money in order to gain larger profits, went into debt to prepare for the economic crash which was sure to follow the war.

Dreams like these vanished in the economic crash that came after the war. British council sent orders to close ports of the British West Indies to all stable items which were not carried in on British ships. France and Spain did the same thing. Suddenly, new manufacturers had tons of British products which were now filling American ports. Because of political unrest and the many efforts to erase personal debts, political and economical anxiety was increased. The inability for Congress to pay off the national debt which piled up dring the war, or to enforce or help in a productive cooperation with the states to encourage commerce and economical devolopment, only made a bad situation worse.

The Continetial Congress had issued bills of credit, but by the end of the war the money had lost a lot of its value. Eventually it had ceased to pass as currency, creating the expression "not worth a continental". Congress couldn't enforce taxes and could only request money from the states. Less than 1.5 million dollats came into the treasury between the years 1781 and 1784, although 2 million was requested in 1783 alone.

When John Adams when to London in 1785 as the irst ever representative of the United States, he found it hard to make a treaty for unrestricted commerce. The were requests for favors and no one was sure that individual states would all agree to a treaty. John Adams said that it was completly necessary for the States to confer all powers of passing navigation laws to Congress, or that the States pass retaliatory acts aginst Great Britian themselves. Congress had already asked, and failed, to gain power over navigation laws. At the same time, each State acted on their own aginst Great Britian to a small effect. However, when most other New England states closed their ports to British shipping, Connecticut acted aginst Congress' requests and gained lots of profits by opening their ports to British merchants.

Debtor's problems came to head in Shays' Rebellion up North in Massachusetts. Congress remained unable to protect manufacturing and shipping. State legislatures were both unwilling and unable to resist attacks from private contracts and pulic credit. When the government couldn't protect its own boarders or protect its own frontier population, land speculators expected no rise in values. The thought of a convention to prefect the Articles of Confederation grew in favor. Alexander Hamilton, a Revolutionary War veteran who decided while serving as George Wahington's aide-de-camp that a strong central government was needed to avoid the fustrations endured by the Army because of a noneffectual Congress, called for a convention in 1786 to revise the Articles which would be known as the Annapolis Convention. Although only five states sent delegates, plans were made for another meeting in Philadelphia the very next year.