Articles of Confederation

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Articles of Confederation
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What were they looking for in a new government?

• Wanted a
• representative model
• Loose union of autonomous states
• Follow Rousseaus philosophy
• Why? Fear of oppressive, centralized power
  encroaching on the freedoms of the states

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Articles of Confederation

• Provisions
• One branch legislative body
• Most democratic branch
• Each state would have one vote
• To pass laws 9/13 states
• Amendments Unanimous
• Sent to 13 states to be ratified in November 1777
• Finally ratified by all states in 1781
• Articles in effect from 1781-1789

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Powers of the Central Government

• Conduct Foreign Affairs (including Native
  Americans)
• Declare war/peace
• Negotiate treaties
• Maintain an army and navy (at whim of states)
• Apportion Western Land
• Coin Money
• Resolve controversies between states

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Central government could not...

• Raise taxes (could ask for taxes)
• Raise a military (needed state approval)
• Regulate trade between states or abroad
• No real authority to enforce the laws that it
  passed no executive
• They couldnt get anything done

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Western Land Apportionment

• Apportion Western Territory
• Government needed a way to make money to pay down
  debt.Land Sales
• Solutions
• Land Ordinance of 1785
• Northwest Ordinance of 1787
• Considered a great success
• See examples of this land policy when looking at
  a plat book

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Land Ordinance of 1785

• Way to get people to populate the West
• Bring in cash for the federal government
• Sold at auction for minimum of 1/acre
• Income from section 16 reserved for schools
• Townships could do what they wanted with this
  land to earn money for schools
• Hoped this would set up farming communities,
  commerce, boost the economy

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Land Ordinance of 1785
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Northwest Ordinance of 1787

• Allocated the Old Northwest for settlement
  (eventually 3-5 states)
• Forbade slavery in the territories
• Three step process for organizing states
• Congress would appoint territorial governor and
  courts
• Once the territory had 5,000 adult white males,
  they could write a territorial constitution and
  elect a legislature
• When the total population reached 60,000, they
  could write a state constitution and submit it to
  Congress.

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Another Success of the Articles

• The federal government had difficulty negotiating
  with the British and the French
• However, they established strong trading
  relationships with Holland, Prussia, Sweden
• By 1790, US trade exceeded the trade of the
  American colonies under the British mercantilist
  system

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Failures of the Articles

• Foreign Policy
• Economics
• Social Unrest

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Foreign Powers Issues

• Spain closes Mississippi
• England Treaty of Paris ignored
• Western forts

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Economic Problems - Finance

• Depression from 1780s until 1790
• Americans debt
• In 1781, the Continental dollar crashed
• States printed their own money making commerce
  tricky

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Economic Problems - Industry

• Americans werent flexible financially
• 95 of country is rural
• They need to diversify to become a more
  self-sufficient country.
• Problem - it takes time and money to start up a
  manufacturing economy. America had neither. Cant
  make factories overnight

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Economic Problems Trade

• Interstate Commerce tariffs on each other
• Foreign Trade
• Foreign nations established tariffs, US did not
  reciprocate.
• No navy to protect exports
• Trade deficit
• America imported about 7 million pounds and
  exported about 2 million.

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Robert Morris

• Successes
• Established more stable currency
• Created the bank of North America (first national
  bank)
• Cut govt spending
• Failures
• Proposed 5 tariff on imports
• 12 states agreed, not Rhode Island
• feared retaliatory tariffs
• Other plans to provide for a federal revenue
  source were rejected
• Morris quits in 1784

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Social Unrest

• The average persons economic position was dire
• The government (at all levels) needed money
• Purchasing power (real wages) was down
  considering the dollar was worthless.
• 3/4 of the hard currency was on the East coast.
• People jailed for failing to pay debts

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Shays Rebellion - 1786