president of the united states under the articles of confederation
Articles of Confederation The peace treaty left the United States independent and at peace but with an unsettled governmental structure. The Articles envisioned a permanent confederation, but granted to the Congress—the only federal institution—little power to finance itself or to ensure that its resolutions were enforced. There was no president, no executive agencies, no judiciary and no tax base. The absence of a tax base meant that there was no way to pay off state and national debts from the war years except by requesting money from the states, which seldom arrived.[31][32] Although historians generally agree that the Articles were too weak to hold the fast-growing nation together, they do give credit to the settlement of the western issue, as the states voluntarily turned over their lands to national control.[33]
Constitutional Convention (United States) At the time the convention was not referred to as a Constitutional Convention, nor was it known among most of the delegates that the purpose of the convention was to draft a new Constitution. Many of the delegates assumed that the purpose of the convention was to discuss and draft improvements to the existing Articles of Confederation and would have abandoned the effort otherwise. The most contentious disputes revolved around composition and election of the upper legislative house in the future bicameral Congress, to be known as the Senate, how "proportional representation" was to be defined (whether to include slaves or other property), whether to divide the executive power between three persons or invest the power into a single chief executive to be called the President, how to elect the President, how long his term was to be and whether he could run for reelection, what offenses should be impeachable, the nature of a fugitive slave clause, whether to allow the abolition of the slave trade, and whether judges should be chosen by the legislature or executive. Most of the time during the Convention was spent on deciding these issues, while the powers of legislature, executive, and judiciary were not heavily disputed. Once the Convention began, the delegates first agreed on the principles of the Convention, then they agreed on Madison's proposed Virginia Plan and began to modify it. A Committee of Detail, assembled during the July 4th recess, eventually produced a rough draft of the constitution. Most of the rough draft remained in place, and can be found in the final version of the constitution. After the final issues were resolved, the Committee on Style produced the final version, and it was voted on by the delegates, inscribed on parchment with engraving for printing and sent to the states and their legislatures.
History of the United States The American Revolutionary War began at Concord and Lexington in April 1775 when the British tried to seize ammunition supplies and arrest the Patriot leaders.
United States presidential election The election of President and Vice President of the United States is an indirect election in which citizens of the United States who are registered to vote in one of the 50 U.S. states or in Washington, D.C. cast ballots not directly for those offices, but instead for members of the U.S. Electoral College, known as electors. These electors then in turn cast direct votes, known as electoral votes, for President, and for Vice President. The candidate who receives an absolute majority of electoral votes (at least 270 out of a total of 538, since the Twenty-Third Amendment granting voting rights to citizens of Washington, D.C.) is then elected to that office. If no candidate receives an absolute majority of the votes for President, the House of Representatives chooses the winner; if no one receives an absolute majority of the votes for Vice President, then the Senate chooses the winner.