the articles of confederation

The first constitution of the United States, drafted in 1777 and in force from 1781, made a 'firm league of friendship' among sovereign states under a Congress that could not tax, regulate trade or compel anything. Its failures in the 1780s, catalogued by Madison in 'Vices of the Political System', are the case the Constitution was written to answer.

Read with the New Hampshire Constitution of 1776, the Declaration of Rights from the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780, Washington's Circular Letter to the States (1783) and Madison's 'Vices of the Political System of the United States' (1787) in the Roots of American Order summer seminar, June 2026.