what kind of government was the articles of confederation
Articles of Confederation The Articles formed a war-time confederation of states, with an extremely limited central government. While unratified, the document was used by the Congress to conduct business, direct the American Revolutionary War, conduct diplomacy with foreign nations, and deal with territorial issues and Native American relations. The adoption of the Articles made few perceptible changes in the federal government, because it did little more than legalize what the Continental Congress had been doing. That body was renamed the Congress of the Confederation; but Americans continued to call it the Continental Congress, since its organization remained the same.[2]
Preamble to the United States Constitution The phrase "to form a more perfect Union" has been construed as referring to the shift to the Constitution from the Articles of Confederation.[71] In this transition, the "Union" was made "more perfect" by the creation of a federal government with enough power to act directly upon citizens, rather than a government with narrowly limited power that could act on citizens (e.g., by imposing taxes) only indirectly through the states.[72] Although the Preamble speaks of perfecting the "Union," and the country is called the "United States of America," the Supreme Court has interpreted the institution created as a government over the people, not an agreement between the States.[73] The phrase has also been interpreted to confirm that state nullification of any federal law,[74] dissolution of the Union,[75] or secession from it,[76] are not contemplated by the Constitution.
Articles of Confederation On January 21, 1786, the Virginia Legislature, following James Madison's recommendation, invited all the states to send delegates to Annapolis, Maryland to discuss ways to reduce interstate conflict. At what came to be known as the Annapolis Convention, the few state delegates in attendance endorsed a motion that called for all states to meet in Philadelphia in May 1787 to discuss ways to improve the Articles of Confederation in a "Grand Convention." Although the states' representatives to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia were only authorized to amend the Articles, the representatives held secret, closed-door sessions and wrote a new constitution. The new Constitution gave much more power to the central government, but characterization of the result is disputed. The general goal of the authors was to get close to a republic as defined by the philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment, while trying to address the many difficulties of the interstate relationships. Historian Forrest McDonald, using the ideas of James Madison from Federalist 39, describes the change this way:
United States Congress The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the Federal government of the United States consisting of two chambers: the Senate and the House of Representatives.