1777] The Articles of Confederation 237 state legislatures soon acquired the right to appoint the delegates of the state in Congress; moreover, the local legislatures were more under the control of the people than was Congress. It was in these circumstances that the Articles of Confederation were drawn up and transmitted to the states for ratification. plan. American No. 20. Articles of Confederation, adopted 1777. 167. Formation of the Articles of Confederation. The Franklin's earliest draft of a plan for a federal union was made by Franklin, and was read in Congress on July 21, 1775; but History nothing further was done with the matter during the session Leaflets, of the First Continental Congress. In June of the next year, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia coupled with the resolution of independence another for the formation of Articles of Confederation (p. 203). It is possible that the expectation was that the declaration and the frame of government would form one instrument, as was later the case in Virginia. A "grand committee," consisting of one member from each colony, was appointed to devise a plan of union; it reported through its chairman, John Dickinson, in the middle of July, and its report is hence known as Dickinson's draft. The matter was discussed at intervals until November, 1777, when the Articles were adopted and transmitted to the states. They vary in form and language from Dickinson's draft, but resemble it very closely in all essential features. Of course it is impossible to say how far Franklin's scheme represented public opinion at the time of its presentation. Possibly it may have been far beyond the measure of what would have been acceptable. It will be well, however, to note a few of the differences between Franklin's draft and the report of the committee. Franklin provided for the regulation of "general commerce" by the Congress; this was confided to the states in Dickinson's draft, except in so far as commerce was affected by treaties entered into by Congress. In Franklin's scheme representation in Congress was to be distributed among the states in proportion to their population, and each delegate was to have one vote; in the com Fiske's riod, 90-101; Critical Pe No. 2. mittee's report a state might send as many delegates as it chose between two and seven, but each state should have only one vote. Franklin provided for amendments by vote of a majority of the state assemblies; Dickinson required. the consent of all the state legislatures to any change. The Articles ation, and other plans of federal Union. American History Leaflets, John Dickinson ticable frame of gov ernment. It would certainly have postponed the formation of a new constitution for many years, and it is fortunate, therefore, that it was not adopted. 168. The Articles of Confederation. The best, in fact of Confeder- the only, way to understand the new arrangement for government, and to comprehend its place in the history of the United States, is to study with care the document itself and to compare it with the Articles of Confederation of the New England colonies (p. 95) and with the Albany Plan of Union (p. 138) on the one side, and with the ConstituNos. 7, 8, 14, tion (p. 262) on the other. It is also very helpful, but more difficult, to study it in connection with the governmental arrangements of Great Britain after 1603, and before the Act of Union of 1707, and with the actual constitution 20. 1777] The Articles of Confederation 239 with the Union of England and Scotland. of the kingdom after that time. During the first of these The Articles periods England and Scotland had the same king; each compared kingdom, however, had its own legislative body and its own system of laws; the Act of Union brought about a change in this latter regard, the two kingdoms henceforth having one legislative body and one system of laws. In the former time, for instance, the colonies, by the navigation acts, could no more trade with Scotland than they could with France; in the latter time, Scotland and England were regarded as one country as far as colonial trade was concerned. The first form of union is known as a personal union; the latter is usually termed a legislative union. Before the Revolution the colonies had denied that there was a legislative union between the several colonies and the home state, and in the Declaration of Independence the denial is repeated. They maintained that the union was merely a personal union through the king, to whom all owed allegiance. In their endeavor to find some means of replacing the discarded authority of Britain, they constructed a government which should have the power which they had contended belonged to the British government, and no more. Under the Confederation each state possessed its own legislative body and its own system of laws; Congress took the place of the British king and possessed very nearly the same authority that the colonists had contended belonged to that monarch. For $47. instance, Congress could make war and conclude peace, maintain an army and navy, and settle disputes between the several members of the Confederation; but it could not tax the people of the several states, or enact laws for their government, except in the very limited particulars laid down in the Articles. It had no coercive force over either an individual or a state, and without some such power the rights to maintain armies and conclude treaties were largely useless. In the old colonial empire, the executive authority had been wielded, so far as it had been wielded at all, by the king and the Board of Trade, who had at their back the might of Great Britain; in the Confederation, the Analysis of the Articles. Portions to be memo rized. Guide, Gravity of the crisis, 1777-81. *Froth ingham's Republic, 572-577. executive authority was confided to a body composed of delegates appointed by the several states, who had behind them no strength whatever except the precarious good will of the several states. It had proved to be difficult to maintain the efficiency of government under the former system; it was utterly impossible to govern even ineffectively under the arrangement provided by the Articles of Confederation. 169. Importance of the Articles of Confederation. — The Articles convey no information of desirable modes of federal governments to the student of institutions; but though contemptible as a scheme of government, the fact of its adoption was one of the half-dozen most important events in the history of the United States. The people of the thirteen states, who were struggling together for independence, might have formed one government or thirteen governments, or any number of governments between one and thirteen, as they saw fit; that they preferred to live bound together by even the loosest tie, manifested a spirit of nationalism which was certain to lead to better results. To us, who know how impotent the government of the Confederation was, it seems truly astounding that practiced politicians, like the members of the Second Continental Congress, should have framed such a hopeless instrument; we are wise after the event. But the men of 1776 had no experience to guide them: never before had a confederation of the size of the United States even been proposed; never before had any one even tried to formulate a scheme of government for such a federation. The adoption of the Articles terminated one of the most serious crises in the history of the United States. The gravity of the occasion may easily be gathered from the fact that it was nearly four years ere the legislatures of the thirteen states gave their consent to the new form of government. Among the reasons for this delay were the inefficiency of the proposed arrangement to meet the needs of the time, the equal apportionment of power regardless of the size and importance of the several members of the Confederation, and, 1777] Claims to Western Lands 241 above all, the disputes which had arisen as to the disposal of the land between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi. lands. Winsor's 170. Claims to Western Lands. It will be remembered Claims to that the king, by proclamation in 1763 (p. 136), had set western apart the lands west of the Alleghanies for the use of the Fiske's CritiIndians, until some other determination should be reached cal Period, in regard to them. He also had forbidden the colonial 187-195; governors to grant these lands to settlers or speculators. America, In 1774 Parliament had gone even further, and had an- VII, app. i. nexed all of this territory as far south as the Ohio to the province of Quebec, with certain important reservations, which have been already noted (p. 183). In 1776 the people of the several states examined anew their titles to western lands and put forward the most extravagant claims, which it will be well for us to examine in some detail. Massachusetts reverted to her old charter of 1629, which Massachuhad been annulled in 1684; the province charter of 1691 setts. had been so phrased as to throw a doubt upon the northward extension of this grant, and the Privy Council (1732) had decided against Massachusetts and in favor of New Hampshire (p. 128). The former colony now claimed all lands west of the settled portions of New York, under the most liberal interpretation of the charter of 1629. This claim included all lands between the parallel of points three miles north of the source of the Merrimac and three miles south of the source of the Charles. Connecticut based her claim on the charter of 1662, which had never been formally annulled. This gave her, she contended, a clear title to all lands south of the Massachusetts line as far as the latitude of New York City. The state of New York New York. had no claim under any charter, but the Iroquois had given a deed of cession of all their lands to the governor of New York as representative of the king. This included all the western land north of the Tennessee River, as the Iroquois had pretended to exercise authority over the Indians living in this vast region. It was now urged that this cession had been made to the governor of the colony of New York, and R |