Articles of Confederation

On reasons for scrapping the Articles of Confederation and adopting the new Constitution VI.2 To Dr. Richard Price, Feb. i, 1785... 

Some defects in the Articles of Confederation VI.3 To John Adams, Nov. 13, 1787... 

Annapolis convention, 439-40 aristoCTacy, natural and artificial, 187 Aristotle, xvii, 148, 217-18 translations of, 217 army, standing, danger of, 113 Articles of Confederation, xviii, 439 reasons for scrapping, 354, 358-9 Austin, Benjamin, 565... 

Articles of Confederation drafted by Congress son is born but dies shortly thereafter... 

In theory and upon paper, this apparatus of powers, seems amply sufficient for all general purposes. In several material instances, they exceed the powers enumerated in the articles of confederation. The Amphyc-tions had in their hands the superstition of the times, one of the principal engines by which government was then maintained they had declared authority to use coercion against refractory cities, and were bound by oath to exert this authority on the necessary occasions. 

From a comparison and fair construction [interpretation] of these several modes of expression, is to be deduced the authority, under which the Convention acted. They were to frame a national government, adequate to the exigencies of government and of the Union, and to reduce the articles of confederation into such form as to accomplish these purposes. 

The truth is, that the great principles of the Constitution proposed by the Convention, may be considered less as absolutely new, than as the expansion of principles which are found in the Articles of Confederation. The misfortune under the latter system has been, that these principles are so feeble and confined as to justify all the charges of inefficiency which have been urged against it and to require a degree of enlargement which gives to the new system, the aspect of an entire transformation of the old. 

The regulation of weights and measures is transferred from the Articles of Confederation, and is founded on like considerations with the preceding... 

In the Articles of Confederation no provision is found on this important subject. Canada was to be admitted of right on her joining in the measures of the United States and the other colonies, by which were evidently meant, the other British colonies, at the discretion of nine States. The... 

In the first place, as these Constitutions invest the State Legislatures with absolute sovereignty, in all cases not excepted by the existing Articles of Confederation, all the authorities contained in the proposed Constitution, so far as they exceed those enumerated in the confederation, would have been annulled, and the new Congress would have been reduced to the same impotent condition with their predecessors. 

Hamilton refers to the requirement, under the Articles of Confederation (Article i x), that decisions regarding a wide array of issues be made by two-thirds vote in the Congress. Contrast the favorable view of this requirement in Brutus vii i (486). 

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