Articles of Confederation

pl n

(Historical Terms) the agreement made by the original 13 states in 1777 establishing a confederacy to be known as the United States of America; replaced by the Constitution of 1788

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

Articles of Confederation

The constitution which created the United States of America by a meeting of Congress in 1777. Effective 1781.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun

Articles of Confederation - a written agreement ratified in 1781 by the thirteen original states; it provided a legal symbol of their union by giving the central government no coercive power over the states or their citizens

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

That committee reported on the twelfth of July, eight days after the Declaration of Independence had been issued, a draft of articles of confederation between the colonies.

There was thus no congeniality of principle between the Declaration of Independence and the Articles of Confederation. The foundation of the former was a superintending Providence- -the rights of man, and the constituent revolutionary power of the people.

Where, then, did each State get the sovereignty, freedom, and independence, which the Articles of Confederation declare it retains?--not from the whole people of the whole Union--not from the Declaration of Independence--not from the people of the State itself.

In the Articles of Confederation, this order of agency is inverted.

The incompetency of the Articles of Confederation for the management of the affairs of the Union at home and abroad was demonstrated to them by the painful and mortifying experience of every day.

At his residence at Mount Vernon, in March, 1785, the first idea was started of a revisal of the Articles of Confederation, by the organization, of means differing from that of a compact between the State Legislatures and their own delegates in Congress.

But they had the Articles of Confederation before them, and they saw and felt the wretched condition into which they had brought the whole people, and that the Union itself was in the agonies of death.

View in context

The articles of confederation obliged the parties to submit the matter to the decision of a federal court.

View in context

It was further matured, and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation in 1778.

View in context

27, 1830), in 3 FARRAND'S RECORDS 483, 486 and 9 MADISON WRITINGS 411, 418; see also 3 FARRAND'S RECORDS 487, 9 MADISON WRITINGS 411, 418-19 ("these terms copied from the Articles of Confederation, were regarded in the new as in the old Instrument merely as general terms, explained & limited by the subjoined specifications; and therefore requiring no critical attention or studied precaution"); James Madison, Report of 1800 on the Virginia Resolutions (Jan.

The dubious enumerated power doctrine

Collective Action Under the Articles of Confederation, by Keith L.

Collective Action Under the Articles of Confederation

It was further matured, and the faith of all the then thirteen states expressly plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation in 1778.

Do the People Rule?