After the Declaration of Independence was adopted, the government began creating and approving a written plan of government for the new confederation. It took five years, as delegates and states sought agreement on fundamental principles, but the Articles of Confederation were created. The Articles of Confederation are a written document defining the structure of the government from 1781 to 1788 under which the union was a confederation of equal states, with no executive and limited powers, existing mainly to foster a common defense. Much like the existing Continental Congress, there was no national executive and no judiciary. To approve or amend the Articles, the vote had to be a unanimous consent from both of the thirteen state delegates and the thirteen state legislatures.
The Articles of Confederation proved surprisingly difficult to put into place because the thirteen states continued to disagree over many things. They disagreed over boundaries in the land west of the states. Virginia and Connecticut had old colonial charters that located …show more content…
The Articles were the first constitutional agreement made between the 13 American states. They kept the United States together long enough to realize unity. Its goal was to establish a written document of the functions of the national government after declaring independence from Great Britain. The Articles of Confederation were not successful for many reasons. It established a weak central government with no president. The government was ran by the thirteen individual states themselves. They controlled their own foreign policy. Another reason the Articles of Confederation were not successful was because they gave the national government no power of direct taxation. This was a bad decision because governments get their money from taxes. Without taxes, the government did not have any money and would not be able to run