Drafting the Articles of Confederation: Debates and Ratification

Drafting the Articles of Confederation took Congress roughly sixteen months of active work and nearly five years to see through to full effect. A committee chaired by John Dickinson produced a first draft in July 1776, Congress debated and reshaped it through the fall of 1777, adopted the final text on November 15, 1777, and sent it to the states, where unanimous ratification did not arrive until Maryland signed on March 1, 1781. The document that emerged was substantially weaker than the one Dickinson had proposed, reflecting a revolutionary generation’s suspicion of central power and the hard bargaining of small states, large states, slaveholding states, and landlocked states.

The Committee and Dickinson’s Draft

The drafting process began with the same resolution that produced independence. On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee moved that the colonies declare themselves free, seek foreign alliances, and prepare “a plan of confederation” for the states’ approval.¹ On June 11, Congress appointed three committees to carry out each part.² The next day, June 12, it named a confederation committee of one member from each colony: Josiah Bartlett of New Hampshire, Samuel Adams of Massachusetts, Stephen Hopkins of Rhode Island, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, Robert R. Livingston of New York, John Dickinson and Thomas McKean of Delaware, Thomas Stone of Maryland, Thomas Nelson Jr. of Virginia, Joseph Hewes of North Carolina, Edward Rutledge of South Carolina, and Button Gwinnett of Georgia.³

Dickinson served as chairman and principal writer.⁴ The committee moved fast. It reported a draft to Congress on July 12, 1776, eight days after the Declaration of Independence was finalized.⁵

What Congress Cut from Dickinson’s Draft

Dickinson’s version envisioned a stronger central government than the one Congress ultimately approved. Over the sixteen months of debate that followed, delegates stripped out or softened several key provisions.

Dickinson had allowed each state to retain its own laws and internal governance only “in all Matters that shall not interfere with the Articles” of the confederation. That phrase implied federal supremacy where the Articles spoke. Congress removed it, eliminating the mechanism that would have given confederation authority precedence over state law.⁶

In marginal notes, Dickinson had queried whether the confederation should prevent people “hereafter brought into these Colonies” from being held in slavery. No such provision reached the final text. His draft also included protections for Native peoples, calling for federally appointed officials to secure Indian lands against encroachment, prevent injustice in trade, and provide for the “personal Wants & Distresses” of Native nations. Congress rejected those clauses in committee.⁶

A religious liberty clause in the draft used gender-inclusive language: “No Person or persons in any Colony living peaceably under the Civil Government shall be molested or prejudiced in his or their Person or Estate for his or her religious persuasion or Practice.” Scholars have called this the first instance of gender-inclusive language in a substantive provision of an Anglo-American constitution. Congress removed it entirely.⁶

Dickinson had given Congress authority to limit the boundaries of states whose colonial charters ran to the “South Seas” and to create new states from western territory. States with large land claims, led by Virginia, killed that power and replaced it with language stating that “no State shall be deprived of territory for the benefit of the United States.”⁷ That single edit would freeze the ratification process for nearly four years.

The Fights That Defined the Document

Between July and August 1776, two disputes consumed the debate over Dickinson’s draft: how to divide tax obligations among the states, and how to allocate votes in Congress.

Taxation: Whose Population Counts

Article XI of the draft proposed apportioning tax quotas by total inhabitants. Samuel Chase of Maryland moved to limit the count to “white inhabitants,” arguing that enslaved people were property and that counting them alongside land and other wealth taxed the South twice. John Adams answered that laborers produced comparable wealth regardless of legal status, and that a state with five hundred enslaved workers should pay the same as a state with five hundred free workers.⁸

Benjamin Harrison of Virginia floated a two-for-one compromise, counting two enslaved people as equivalent to one free person. James Wilson rejected it, contending that slave labor increased state profits and that using total population would discourage slavery. John Witherspoon of New Jersey argued that land and house values, not people, were the “true barometer of wealth.”⁸ On August 1, 1776, the Chase amendment failed: seven states against, five in favor, Georgia divided.⁹ The final Articles apportioned federal expenses by land values rather than by population at all.¹⁰

Representation: One State, One Vote

The other central fight was over voting power. Large-state delegates pressed for proportional representation. Benjamin Franklin called equal voting “unreasonable.” Adams said “the interests within doors should be the mathematical representatives of the interests without doors.” Benjamin Rush warned that equal voting by colony had historically decayed republics, pointing to the Dutch. Wilson framed it as a numerical injustice: “Shall two millions of people put it in the power of one million to govern them as they please?”¹¹

Small-state delegates pushed back just as hard. Roger Sherman insisted that delegates represented states, not individuals. Witherspoon warned that proportional voting would turn smaller states into “vassals.” Chase suggested splitting the difference: equal voting on matters of “life or liberty,” proportional on matters of property.⁸ The small-state position won. Each state received one vote in Congress, regardless of size.

Burke’s Sovereignty Amendment

The most consequential single change to Dickinson’s draft came in April 1777, when Thomas Burke of North Carolina proposed language guaranteeing that each state retained its “sovereignty, freedom, and independence” along with “every other power, jurisdiction and right, which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled.”¹² Burke wrote afterward that the proposal was “so little understood that it was some time before it was seconded,” and it drew opposition from James Wilson and Richard Henry Lee. It passed anyway and became Article II. The clause locked in the limited-central-authority character of the entire document, and the same principle later resurfaced as the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.¹³

Adoption in York, November 1777

Debate continued to stall through 1776 and into 1777. War pressure finally forced a conclusion. In the summer of 1777, British General William Howe sailed to the Chesapeake and marched on Philadelphia. Washington’s defeat at Brandywine on September 11, 1777, opened the American capital to occupation.¹⁴ Congress fled to York, Pennsylvania, and spent nine months there. Working under wartime dislocation and internal friction, delegates pushed their edits through October 1777.¹⁵

On November 15, 1777, Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation and transmitted them to the states.⁵ Beyond its symbolic weight, the frame of government was seen as critical for securing French support against the British.¹⁵

What the Final Articles Established

The adopted document called itself a “firm league of friendship” among the thirteen states. Its key features carried forward every compromise reached during drafting:

Article II preserved each state’s “sovereignty, freedom, and independence” and every power not expressly delegated to Congress.¹⁶
Government consisted of a single legislative assembly. There was no independent executive branch and no national judiciary, and members were chosen by state legislatures rather than voters.¹⁶
Each state received one vote in Congress regardless of population or wealth.⁵
Congress could declare war, appoint military officers, sign treaties, form alliances, appoint ambassadors, and manage relations with Native nations.¹⁶
Congress could not levy taxes or regulate trade. Revenue depended on voluntary state contributions, borrowing, or land sales.⁵
Passing a law required the approval of nine of the thirteen states.¹⁶
Any amendment required the approval of every state.⁵
The union was declared perpetual, with no alteration possible without the consent of every state legislature.¹⁷

The Four-Year Ratification Standoff

Congressional adoption was only the first step. Unanimous state ratification was required for the Articles to take effect, giving every legislature a veto. Virginia ratified first, on December 16, 1777. Twelve states had signed the engrossed document by the summer of 1778, and Delaware followed on February 1, 1779.¹⁰ Maryland refused.

Western Lands and the Maryland Holdout

The dispute was over western territory. Virginia and several other states held colonial charters extending to the Pacific. States with fixed western boundaries, including Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and Rhode Island, argued that lands won through a common war should belong to the nation, not to whichever states held old charter language.⁷

Maryland’s stance was not purely disinterested. A faction of the state’s politicians, including Governor Thomas Johnson, held stakes in private speculation companies (the Indiana Company, the Vandalia Company, and the Illinois and Wabash companies) that claimed land purchases made in 1773 and 1774 in the territory between the Wabash and Illinois rivers. Maryland’s formal declaration to Congress on January 6, 1779, demanded that western lands become “common stock” for the United States but carved out an exception for pre-war private purchases. George Mason and other Virginians saw the carve-out as a device to protect the speculators at Virginia’s expense.¹⁸

Breaking the Deadlock

The stalemate ran nearly two more years. In September 1780, Congress urged states with western claims to cede them “for the sake of the Union” and pressed Maryland to ratify. On January 2, 1781, the Virginia legislature agreed to cede its territory northwest of the Ohio River to Congress, on the condition that Congress void certain pre-war Indian land purchases and guarantee Virginia’s remaining territory south of the Ohio. Virginia’s concession, combined with British military victories in the South that made national unity more urgent, brought Maryland around. The Maryland Assembly passed an act of ratification on February 2, 1781. Maryland’s delegates signed the Articles on March 1, 1781, and the document officially took effect.⁷

Nearly five years had passed since Lee first proposed a plan of confederation. The document that emerged from that long process had been shaped less by any single draftsman than by the accumulated demands of small states, slaveholding states, land-claiming states, and a Congress determined that the new central government would not become the kind of authority the colonies had just fought to escape.

1
National Archives. Lee Resolution
2
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3
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4
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8
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9
American Founding. Second Continental Congress, July 12, 1776
10
Office of the Historian, U.S. Department of State. Articles of Confederation
11
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12
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13
NCpedia. Thomas Burke Biography
14
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15
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16
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17
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18
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