Review the Articles of Confederation

• Page 132 in your text book

• Compare yours to the real thing?

• What are the weaknesses and are you surprised?

We are fighting a war and we need a government.

• Question: What kind of government do you think the Founders wanted to create? Why? (write down)

The Articles of Confederation

What were the Articles of Confederation?

The Articles of Confederation were documents outlining the government of the United States from 1781-1789.

Under the Articles of Confederation, the United states was a confederation.

The Articles of Confederation

• Where should the power reside (who should have more?)– With the State governments?– With the new National government?

– What would you guess they decided?– Why?

The Articles Created a Republic What’s a Republic?

A system of government where the people are represented by elected officials

How strong or weak of a national government would the

colonists want?

Consider, they were fighting a war against a powerful nation that was trying to control them.

Where the states more alike, or more different from each

other?Remember the differences we learned in the last two units!

Would that affect the kind of government they choose to

create?

Weaknesses in the Articles of Confederation

• The National Government could NOT– Print money– Collect taxes– Regulate trade– Keep an army

The National Government consisted of A CongressNo Executive Branch to enforce lawsNo Judicial Branch to resolve conflicts or interpret the laws

The Articles in Practice

• The weaknesses prevented the new government from doing much, but some things did happen.– Post Office- Ben Franklin was the 1st

Postmaster General– Settled land disputes

Treaty of Paris 1783

• Officially ended the Revolutionary War

• Established the new boundaries of the United States of America

• The newly independent states, and the new national government had monumental tasks to deal with– War debt was huge– How to pay, who should pay?– What to do with the western lands claimed by

multiple states?

Land Ordinance of 1785

• States agreed to give up individual claims to western lands. (see map)

• Lands in these new “Territories” were to be divided.– How would you divide the lands?– What would you consider?– They called them “Townships”

• Land Ordinance of 1785 continued– Western holdings should be sold to help

pay national debt– Land neatly organized and surveyed– Divided into townships (36 square miles)– Established school in each township

Northwest Ordinance of 1787• Northwest Ordinance

– Outlined the guidelines for admitting new states to the union

– New townships become territories– Could apply for statehood when it has 60,000

inhabitants– Steps

60,000 people

Write a constitution

Ask Congress to admit the new state

Weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation

• Question: The Articles of Confederation provided for an extremely weak central (national) government. How could this be problematic for the young United States?

A powerless government?• Get your

textbooks out and read page 140