One of the great blind spots in America’s self-conceived history is the Articles of Confederation. You know, that disastrous first attempt at a regime that allowed Rhode Island to single-handedly veto a tax on commerce? Congress allowed one vote per state, and taxes could only be installed by unanimous consent. Thus the littlest one succeeded in prolonging the pattern of starving the federal government of money. The system was so dependent on relations between the states that no new states were added under that system — it was just too unwieldy.
Norquist’s fantasy aside, the AoC have been largely excised from our collective memory, aside from a 1-week mention in high school history, mixed-in with mutterings about the Northwest Ordinance. While the Constitution is in hallowed ground in DC and Philadelphia, hidden away in Fort Knox during World War II, original copies of the AoC are hard to find. Oh, they’re preserved — just not displayed. There isn’t much named after the first 10 heads of American government in this regime, entitled “presidents of Congress” — Richard Henry Lee, John Hancock, and Samuel Huntington are the only recognizable names among them. Not much is named after them — the aforementioned Elia Boudinot has one eponymous elementary school, that’s it. These ten presidents, these eight years, have largely been forgotten to American history and certainly to the general zeitgeist. We don’t even tend to “count” American statehood until the date when their legislatures ratified the Constitution.
Of course, the AoC was an example of the pendulum swinging too far — after the centralized British monarchy, colonists went after a thoroughly de-centralized system that couldn’t even govern its own turf. There wasn’t even a single national currency: states printed their own. The Articles of Confederation are much more analogous to the modern European Union than the current American regime. As with other attempts at confederation — such as the United Arab Republic — it failed.
We could argue over the reasons for this memory hole. Have the Articles of Confederation been forgotten because they accomplished so little over the eight years when they where the basic law of this country? Or is it a rather embarrassing reminder of our failure at self-government on our first try, a rather stark reminder that American exceptionalism is far from American perfectionism?
PS: Only after this was written did I realize we could no longer write draft diaries. Rather than delete, I went with it.
Here is a link to the text of the Articles.
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p>Even this period was divided into pre-ratification (1776-1781) and post-ratification (1781-1788) periods. The Continental Congress was basically winging it with regards to the war and western land claims had to be conceded to the United States before the Articles could take effect. The one big accomplishment of the Articles government was the Northwest Ordainance.
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p>I would say that period is forgotten mostly because it was brief. The “Presidents” were presiding officers, but not independent executives. I would, however, go as far as to say the European Union is MORE united now than we were under the Articles.
We didn’t strictly speaking have an executive, and President of the Congress was as much a secretary as anything else (oddly enough, some people went into the Constitutional Convention thinking that the position was too powerful). Which makes one wonder how foreign or military affairs could ever have been handled.
…foreign and military affairs were the jurisdiction of the Committee of the States, a smaller body of one delegate per state that acted for the Congress when it was not in session.
As Christopher accurately points out, the “Presidents of Congress” had far different duties than the office of the president as defined in the constitution. I think it is quite appropriate to describe Obama as #44.
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p>The period of the Articles, in my opinion, should be studied to help people understand the unfortunate conditions that encuraged the states to adopt the constitution. Beyond that, however, they don’t have much direct relevance. Therefore, it is quite appropriate for teachers to focus on the constitution.
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p>As to the EU, I’d say it is more similar to the US before the Civil War (from the perspective of federal authority), or maybe even before the New Deal (to be provocative), than the country under the Articles. After all, the Union has a unified labor market and a unified currency (except for the UK). Their biggest lack is a single army and unified control over their nuclear weapons, and they are moving tentatively toward the former.
I know it’s convention to count Grover Cleveland twice, since he served two nonconsecutive terms, but it’s a stupid convention. Only 43 people have been President of the United States under the Constitution.
After, of course “excecute the office…faithfully”. On the one hand Obama is officially designated the 44th POTUS, but he is the 43rd person to serve as POTUS – talk about your subtle differences! Obama opened his address, by saying 43 men had come before him, when really only 42 had.
hahah. This works well for me, mostly because I’m trying to do a really really good one, but I’m trying to get some information off of a professor of mine for it.
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p>So I cede the history floor this week, but I’ll give you the final Jeopardy category for next week: Venetian Ceremony and the Doge.
I visited Venice on a school trip to Italy in the 1990s. What I recall about the Doges is the rather complex and multi-tiered election process, but I don’t remember the details. I’m a big history buff myself, so maybe I’ll write the History Monday column one week.
It was like some fiendish lottery system, if I remember, where the pool was continually narrowed by lot and voting, round after round after round. Looking forward to it.
because they were viewed as innocent and incorruptible.
… about the Doge getting the 4th Crusade to deviate from it’s holy mission on behalf of Venetian business interests. I’m not sure Zara ever really recovered in terms of being an economic power of the Adriatic. In Venice’s defense, they were providing the transportation.
Too often, we put our Founding Fathers up on a pedestal as if they had some sort of divine insight into how to make a government work. The truth is that they were brilliant, but messed up just like the rest of us. We may forget the Articles of Confederation because they are both irrelevant to our current form of government, but perhaps also because they show us that the heroes of the American Revolution didn’t always get it right. It complicates the narrative that we went from being colonies to an idealistic nation with just some growing pains.
In the Civil War. So they really weren’t that impressive, all things considered. But, probably better than the alternative, which is why it is indeed a fine idea to study the Articles for a bit.
…last I checked the Constitution survived. One of it’s strengths compared to the Articles was eliminating the unanimity require to amend. So the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments were ratified in the most rapid succession ever except for the Bill of Rights, but we kept our Constitution and the succession of Presidents and Congresses was never disrupted.