The Articles of Confederation (AMSCO Topic 3.7) — Outside-Research EditionThe Articles of Confederation (AMSCO Topic 3.7) — Outside-Research Edition

AP US HISTORY · UNIT 3

The Articles of Confederation

AMSCO Topic 3.7

AP US History Study Guide — Outside-Research Edition

Learning Objective: Explain how different forms of government developed and changed as a result of the Revolutionary Period. Thematic focus (College Board framework): American and National Identity (NAT) · Politics and Power (POL)

This guide keeps AMSCO's own content as its backbone and expands it with outside research. Every fact beyond what AMSCO Topic 3.7 says is tagged the moment it appears: OUTSIDE SOURCE — Beyond AMSCO: [claim] — [source]. Only sources actually found this session are cited. Nothing below is invented.

Historical thinking skills this guide targets: causation (why a deliberately weak government failed), comparison (state constitutions vs. the national Articles; the Articles vs. the Constitution that replaced them), and historiography (was the "Critical Period" actually a crisis, or Federalist propaganda?).

Big Picture

Fear of a "tyrannical" strong central government — the very thing they'd just fought a war against — led the Second Continental Congress to design an intentionally weak national government. That design choice is the single idea that explains almost everything else in this topic: every "weakness" below is really a feature working exactly as the Congress of 1776–77 intended, which is why fixing it in 1787 required starting over rather than amending.

New State Governments

By 1777, 10 of the 13 former colonies had written new state constitutions (most written/adopted by state legislatures; MD, PA, and NC put theirs to a popular vote).

Debate was between conservatives (stressed law and order) and liberals (stressed protecting individual rights and preventing future tyranny).

Common features across state constitutions:

List of Rights: each began with a bill/declaration of rights (jury trial, freedom of religion) that state officials could not violate. Separation of Powers: legislative (elected two-house legislature), executive (elected governor), judicial (courts) — meant to guard against the tyranny of a too-powerful executive.

Voting: extended to White males who owned some property (assumption: property owners had more of a stake in government). Office-holding: usually required a higher property qualification than voting did.

OUTSIDE SOURCE — Beyond AMSCO: Pennsylvania's 1776 constitution was the most radical of the bunch — it abolished the governorship and property requirements for voting entirely (any taxpaying man could vote), replacing the executive with a 12- member elected council. It was controversial even among Patriots: John Adams thought it recklessly democratic, while Thomas Paine (who helped draft it) considered it the fullest expression of revolutionary principle. This is a useful concrete example that "the states wrote new constitutions" was not one uniform process — it's itself a comparison point about how far different revolutionaries thought equality should go. — Pennsylvania General Assembly historical archives; National Constitution Center, "Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776," accessed 2026.

The Articles of Confederation (National Level)

Drafted by John Dickinson in 1776 (same time Jefferson wrote the Declaration); Congress modified it to protect state power more. Adopted by Congress in 1777; ratification delayed by disputes over western land claims — resolved when Virginia and New York agreed to cede their claims. Ratified March 1781.

Structure:

Unicameral (one-house) Congress; each state gets one vote.

9 of 13 votes needed to pass important laws; unanimous vote needed to amend.

No separate executive branch, no separate judiciary.

A Committee of States (one rep per state) handled minor decisions between sessions.

Powers granted: wage war, make treaties, send diplomats, borrow money.

Powers NOT granted: no power to regulate commerce, no power to collect taxes (had to request states to voluntarily contribute AMSCO APUSH Unit 3 2 of 5

money), no executive power to enforce its own laws.

For essay writing — this is a causation chain, memorize the links, not just the ends: fear of British-style centralized tyranny (cause) → deliberately weak Congress with no taxing/enforcement power (effect #1, and itself a cause) → Congress can't pay war debts, can't regulate interstate trade, can't respond to Shays's Rebellion (effect #2) → nationalists like Madison and Hamilton conclude the confederation model itself is unworkable, not just badly executed (effect #3) → Constitutional Convention called to replace, not amend, the Articles (effect #4, see Topic 3.8). An essay that treats "the Articles were weak" as a static fact rather than tracing this chain is leaving points on the table.

Accomplishments Under the Articles (1781–1789)

Claims partial credit for winning independence and negotiating favorable peace terms.

Land Ordinance of 1785: established a system for surveying/selling western land in a grid of 6-mile-square townships, each divided into 36 one-square-mile (640-acre) sections; set aside section 16 of each township for public education.

Northwest Ordinance of 1787: set rules for creating new states out of the territory between the Great Lakes and the Ohio River; granted limited self-government (territories could petition for statehood once they reached 60,000 free inhabitants, entering "on an equal footing with the original States") and banned slavery in the region.