The Articles of Confederation, Lesson 1: Drafting and Ratifying the Articles of Confederation, 1775 to 1781

Before 1775: Albany and the Habit of Acting Together

Americans had tried to write a union before they tried to write a country. In 1754 delegates meeting at Albany adopted a plan for "one general government" in America, run by a President-General appointed and paid by the crown and a Grand Council chosen by the colonial assemblies. The plan sorted the colonies into council seats, from seven for Massachusetts Bay and Virginia down to two for New Hampshire and Rhode Island, and set a floor and a ceiling on every colony's delegation: "not more than seven, nor less than two."¹ That sentence matters here because twenty-three years later the Articles of Confederation used almost the same numbers. Article V says no state "shall be represented in Congress by less than two, nor more than seven members."² The Albany Plan went nowhere, since no colonial assembly adopted it and the Board of Trade in London did not want it. Even so, its arithmetic survived in the habits of the men who later drafted the Articles.

The First Continental Congress of 1774 and the Second Continental Congress that met in May 1775 were not governments in any legal sense. They were committees of delegates, appointed by colonial conventions and assemblies, who had been told to concert resistance to Parliament. Nothing in writing said how they would vote, how they would pay for an army, or whether the colonies could leave. The delegates voted by colony, one vote each, because that was how the First Congress had started and nobody had a better rule on the first day. That unplanned rule is the root of the whole fight described in this lesson.

The war supplied the pressure. By the summer of 1775 Congress had taken over an army outside Boston, named a commander, and begun to issue paper money. It was acting like a government while claiming to be nothing of the kind. The question of what it was, and what it was allowed to do, produced the first plan of union drafted inside the Congress itself.

July 21, 1775: Franklin's Sketch

On July 21, 1775, with Congress sitting as a committee of the whole to consider "the state of America," Benjamin Franklin laid before it a "Sketch of Articles of Confederation." Charles Thomson, the secretary, recorded in his own history of the Confederation that Franklin submitted it, and the editors of the Journals concluded from Thomson's entry that Franklin probably offered it of his own motion, as an individual and not as the report of any committee.³

The sketch was a bolder document than anything the Congress finally adopted. It named the union "the United Colonies of North America," and it made the union a "firm League of Friendship" for "common Defence and Offence." It gave Congress power over war and peace, ambassadors, alliances, disputes between colonies about boundaries, and "the Planting of new Colonies when proper." It let Congress make "general Regulations" for commerce, currency, the posts and the common forces, and it let Congress appoint general officers "civil and military," such as a general treasurer and a secretary.³

Three features set the sketch apart from the Articles of 1777.

First, representation followed population. Franklin's sketch fixed the number of delegates by the number of "Male Polls between 16 and 60 Years of Age" in each colony, at one delegate for every 5,000 polls (the figure was bracketed in the manuscript, so Franklin himself regarded it as provisional), and every delegate had a vote. Quorum was one half of the members. Expenses were to be paid out of a common treasury supplied "in proportion to its Number of Male Polls," with the taxes laid and collected under each colony's own laws.³ A colony that sent more delegates both paid more and voted more.

Second, it created an executive. An "executive Council" of twelve, chosen by Congress from its own members and rotated so that a third of the seats changed each year, would act in the recess of Congress, "manage the general continental Business," receive applications from foreign countries and draw on the treasury for money Congress had appropriated.³ The Articles of Confederation had no such body with any lasting force. The Committee of the States that Article X authorized for the recess of Congress proved so ineffective that it met only briefly in 1784 (Lesson 3 returns to that episode).

Third, it provided a way to change itself. Article XII said the Congress "from time to time shall propose such Amendments," and an amendment approved by "a Majority of the Colony Assemblies" would be as binding as the rest.³ The Articles that were adopted two years later demanded the consent of every state legislature. Franklin's version made amendment easier and union harder to block.

The sketch also looked toward a different future. Article XI proposed a perpetual alliance with the Six Nations, with their lands "not to be encroach'd on" and with land purchases made only through the "General Congress," and Article XIII invited Ireland, the West Indies, Quebec, Nova Scotia, Bermuda and the Floridas to join. The closing paragraph said the union would last until the terms of reconciliation in the Petition to the King were met, the commercial restraints repealed and British troops withdrawn, after which the colonies would "return to their former Connection and Friendship with Britain." Failing that, the confederation was to be "perpetual."³

The Library of Congress holds a copy of the sketch with comments in the hand of another delegate, attributed by the Journals' editors to George Wythe of Virginia. The comments include a table that compares what the Albany Plan and the "present plan" would give each colony. On the Albany arithmetic, the twelve colonies listed would hold 48 seats. On Franklin's formula, with 5,000 polls to a delegate, the table counts about 124 and a half, and Wythe's marginal note says that Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Maryland together would hold 66 members, "more than half the whole." Wythe's proposed fix was a change to Article VIII: a delegate would vote on the first ballot, but if any colony was dissatisfied with the majority so taken, "the Colonies shall be Called separately and Each Colony whatever its No of Delegates may be, shall have only one vote as hath heretofore been Customary in Congress."⁴ Every later argument over votes in Congress is already present in that margin note.

The Journal prints the sketch under July 21, 1775, and records no vote on it. The summer of 1775 was a moment when most delegates still hoped for reconciliation, and a document that began "perpetual union" bothered them. Franklin did not press it.

June 1776: The Lee Resolution and the Committee of Thirteen

Eleven months later, the situation had changed. On June 7, 1776, Richard Henry Lee of Virginia moved, on instructions from the Virginia Convention, three resolutions. The first declared the United Colonies "free and independent States." The second said it was "expedient forthwith to take the most effectual measures for forming foreign Alliances." The third said "That a plan of confederation be prepared and transmitted to the respective Colonies for their consideration and approbation."⁵ Jefferson's later account of the same day lists the three as one motion: independence, foreign help, and "a Confederation be formed to bind the colonies more closely together."⁶

The three tracks moved together and at different speeds. On June 11 Congress resolved to appoint a committee of five to draft a declaration, another to prepare a plan of treaties with foreign powers, and a third "to prepare and digest the form of a confederation to be entered into between these colonies." The next day it chose the confederation committee, with one member from each of the thirteen colonies.⁷

The names come from the Journal entries for June 12 and June 28, 1776.⁷⁸ One detail deserves care. The National Archives page on the Articles describes John Dickinson as "a delegate from Delaware."⁹ In 1776 Dickinson sat for Pennsylvania, and the Journal gives Delaware's seat on this committee to Thomas McKean. Dickinson later moved to Delaware and sat for that state in 1779, which is why he signed the Articles for Delaware, as the table in the ratification section shows.

Dickinson's authorship is the one point on which the sources agree. The manuscript that the committee reported on July 12, 1776 is in Dickinson's handwriting, and Charles Thomson used the same manuscript to note the changes Congress made over the following weeks.¹⁰

July 12, 1776: The Dickinson Draft

The committee brought in its draft on July 12, eight days after Congress approved the Declaration of Independence. Congress ordered eighty copies printed, to be held by the secretary and given to members, and ordered that the printer swear to deliver every copy and to reveal nothing of its contents.¹⁰ It was secret by order. The first public printing of the text came only after the final Articles went to the states in 1777.

Dickinson's draft ran twenty articles. It opened, "THE Name of this Confederacy shall be 'THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.'" The second article said the colonies "unite themselves so as never to be divided by any Act whatever" and "enter into a firm League of Friendship," promising to "assist one another against all Force offered to or attacks made upon them." The third reserved to each colony "the sole and exclusive Regulation and Government of its internal police, in all matters that shall not interfere with the Articles of this Confederation."¹⁰ Notice what that third article does. It lists a reserved area, internal police, and leaves everything else to be settled by the Articles and by Congress's interpretation of them. It does not say that each state keeps all powers not delegated. That language was added later, and the next sections show who added it.

The draft's list of shared burdens and powers is nearly the list the final Articles carry. Two clauses deserve a close look because the debates turned on them.

Article XI said common expenses would come from a treasury "supplied by the several colonies in Proportion to the Number of Inhabitants of every Age, Sex and Quality, except Indians not paying Taxes," with a count "distinguishing the white Inhabitants" to be taken every three years. The words "who are not slaves" had been crossed out before the draft was printed, and "white" was inserted in their place in the clause that listed the inhabitants.¹⁰ The apportionment rule was therefore a head count of everybody, with a separate tally of free whites kept for another purpose, and the cost of any colony's share would depend on whether enslaved people counted.

Article XVII was six words: "In determining Questions in Congress each Colony shall have one Vote."¹⁰

Article XVIII, the longest, listed Congress's powers. It included powers the final text would drop. One was "Limiting the Bounds of those Colonies, which by Charter or Proclamation, or under any Pretence, are said to extend to the South Sea, and ascertaining those Bounds of any other Colony that appear to be indeterminate." Another was "Assigning Territories for new Colonies" and "Disposing of all such Lands for the general Benefit of all the United Colonies." Dickinson's own margin note against the boundary clauses reads, "These clauses [from Limiting the Bounds, &c.] are submitted to Congress." In other words the author thought them important and unsettled enough to bring to the whole body without a recommendation.¹⁰

The same article ended with a limit on the new government: Congress "shall never impose or levy any Taxes or Duties, except in managing the Post-Office." And it set voting thresholds. Nine colonies had to agree to war, alliances, coining money, borrowing, emitting bills, appropriating money, raising naval forces or fixing the size of the army. "Nor shall a Question on any other Point, except for adjourning, be determined, unless the Delegates of seven Colonies vote in the affirmative."¹⁰ A majority of the colonies, seven of thirteen, was therefore needed even for ordinary business.

The draft created, in Article XIX, a "Council of State" with one delegate from each colony. It could open letters directed to the United States, correspond with the colonial legislatures, direct military operations by sea and land within the objects Congress had set, "draw upon the Treasurers for such Sums as may be appropriated," and "summon an Assembly of the States at an earlier Day." It could not "make any Engagements that shall be binding on the United States."¹⁰ That body is the ancestor of the Committee of the States in Article X of the final text.

The last article admitted Canada on its accession and required nine colonies to admit any other. The closing paragraph said the Articles would be proposed to the colonial legislatures and, once ratified, "inviolably be observed by every Colony, and the Union is to be perpetual." Alteration required Congress's assent "and be afterwards confirmed by the Legislatures of every Colony."¹⁰ So by 1776, Franklin's amendment by a majority of assemblies had been replaced by unanimity.

The questions in the margins

Dickinson wrote queries beside the text of the draft, and the Journals' editors printed them in notes. They show a careful man who knew what he had left open. Beside Article III he asked, "Should not the first Article provide for a Toleration and agt Establishments hereafter to be made?" and also asked about "the Propriety of the Union's garranteeing to every colony their respective Constitution and form of Government." Beside Article XV, on guaranteeing colonial boundaries, he asked "Should there not be an Article to prevent those who are hereafter brought into these Colonies, from being held in Slavery within the Colonies?" Beside Article XVI he asked whether delegates should take an oath, and whether a delegate unwell might "vote by Proxy or by Writing." On the power of war and peace he asked "How the power is to be describ'd, if any is to be given to the United States assembled of erecting Forts and keeping Garrisons, in any Colony, for the gen. Defence? Should it be done, if the Colony objects?" On the nine-colony rule for treaties he asked "If So large a Majority is necessary in concluding a Treaty of Peace?"¹⁰

The queries foreshadow nearly every later difficulty: the missing bill of rights, slavery, the military, the treaty-making supermajority and the lack of any federal power to coerce a colony. None of them found its way into the text. Some of them, notably the treaty question, produced real trouble when the Confederation Congress tried to ratify the Treaty of Paris in the winter of 1783 to 1784.

Franklin's draft dissent

Among the papers printed with the Dickinson draft is an unfinished sheet from Franklin's manuscripts. It begins, "We the Representatives of the State of Pennsylvania in full Convention met," and declares Pennsylvania's dissent from the plan of confederation "for the following reasons." The first is that a lasting confederation must rest on "Justice and Equity, no unfair Advantage being given to, or taken by, any of the Contracting parties." The second says it is "just and equal" that the states "should be represented in Congress, and have Votes there in proportion to their Importance," so that Article XVII, which gave "one Vote to the smallest State and no more to the largest" when they might differ ten to one, was "unjust, and injurious to the larger States." Franklin's note on the sheet says he drew it up in 1776 when he was President of the Pennsylvania Convention, but "was dissuaded from endeavouring to carry it through, from some prudential Considerations respecting the necessary Union at that time of all the States in Confederation."¹¹ He kept the draft in his papers and let the union go forward.

July and August 1776: Debating Votes and Money

Congress took up the draft on July 22, 1776, again as a committee of the whole, and met on it nearly every day through the end of July and into August.¹² The Journal records only that the committee sat and made "some progress." The substance survives in notes that Thomas Jefferson kept in his place and wrote out afterwards. He included them in his Autobiography, written in 1821, and said the notes of "the earlier debates on the Confederation" were taken "in like manner" as his notes on the Declaration, from which he "wrote them out in form and with correctness."⁶ They are the best account that exists, and readers should remember what they are: a delegate's notes, polished by their author, with the attributions and phrasing his.

The fights of July 30, 31 and August 1 concerned two articles.

How to count the people who pay

The first was Article XI, the formula for each colony's share of common expenses. Samuel Chase of Maryland moved to count only "white inhabitants," on the theory that population was a proxy for property and that enslaved people were property like cattle. He said that "negroes are property, and as such cannot be distinguished from the lands or personalities held in those States where there are few slaves," and argued that a Southern farmer invested his surplus in slaves where a Northern farmer invested in livestock.⁶

John Adams answered that the head count served as an index of a state's wealth, so "it was of no consequence by what name you called your people, whether by that of freemen or of slaves." He argued that what mattered was the number of laborers, since 500 free laborers produced no greater surplus for taxation than 500 enslaved ones.⁶ James Wilson argued that the amendment would let Southern colonies keep "all the benefit of slaves" while Northern colonies would "bear the burthen," and said "It is our duty to lay every discouragement on the importation of slaves." Benjamin Harrison of Virginia proposed that two enslaved people count as one freeman, on the argument that they did less work. John Witherspoon argued that the best measure of wealth was the value of lands and houses, which would turn out to be the rule Congress adopted a year later.⁶

The vote came on August 1, according to Jefferson. The amendment to count only white inhabitants was rejected. New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania voted against it. Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina voted for it. Georgia was divided.⁶ The Southern states, which favored counting fewer people, were the states Chase's amendment would have helped.

The result was stranger than a one-line summary suggests, because the same Southern delegates who would later demand that enslaved people count fully for representation (in 1787) argued in 1776 that they should not count for taxation. The positions followed the interest of the moment, as Adams said they would. Eleven years later, at the Federal Convention, the same logic produced the three-fifths clause. The 1776 debate is its prehistory.

How to vote

The second article was Article XVII, one vote per colony. Chase called it "the most likely to divide us of any one proposed." He reported that the larger colonies "had threatened they would not confederate at all if their weight in congress should not be equal to the numbers of people they added," while the smaller ones "declared against a union if they did not retain an equal vote for the protection of their rights." He proposed a compromise: equal votes on most questions, but on money, "the voice of each colony should be proportioned to the number of its inhabitants."⁶

Franklin, as Jefferson recorded him, thought votes should be proportioned in all cases. He observed that Delaware had instructed its delegates to refuse the article, "a very extraordinary language to be held by any state, that they would not confederate with us unless we would let them dispose of our money." If votes were equal, he argued, payments should be equal too. He then told a story from the Union of England and Scotland, in which Scotland feared "the whale would swallow Jonas," but in fact "Jonas had swallowed the whale," because the Scots came to hold the government.⁶

Witherspoon of New Jersey answered for the small states, and he made the case for equality in terms that later speakers on the other side of the argument would borrow. "The colonies should in fact be considered as individuals," he said, and as such "they had a right to vote as individuals." He distinguished an "incorporating" union from a "federal" one, held that equality was the proper principle for things "similar & of the same nature," and warned that if the large states prevailed, "the smaller states will become vassals to the larger."⁶

John Adams spoke for proportional votes. "The individuality of the colonies is a mere sound," he said, and the confederacy was "to form us, like separate parcels of metal, into one common mass." He also argued that the three largest colonies, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, differed so much in distance, produce and manners that they would never combine to oppress the others. Benjamin Rush, in the same debate, said the decay of the Dutch republic came from three causes, the third of which was "their voting by provinces," and added that voting by free inhabitants would encourage colonies "to discourage slavery & to encourage the increase of their free inhabitants." Stephen Hopkins of Rhode Island noted that there were four large, four small and four middle-sized colonies, and that the four largest held more than half the inhabitants. James Wilson ended the day with the sharpest line: "It is strange that annexing the name of 'State' to ten thousand men, should give them an equal right with forty thousand. This must be the effect of magic, not of reason."⁶

The recorded debate does not end with a vote on Article XVII. Congress did not resolve it in 1776. Instead the committee of the whole reported on August 20, with Article XVII still reading "one vote," and the printed report shows what had been settled and what had not. Thomson's marginal notes on the Dickinson manuscript read "agreed" beside some articles and "postponed" beside others. The tax formula in Article XI and the passages on Indian land purchases and western boundaries were postponed.¹³ The two issues that would take another year to settle, the money formula and the western land, had both been put aside.

Before the debates began, John Adams had written to his wife, on July 29, 1776, what the whole thing came to. "If a Confederation should take place, one great question is, how we shall vote," he wrote, "whether each Colony shall count one; or whether each shall have a weight in proportion to its number, or wealth, or exports and imports, or a compound ratio of all?" And "Another is, Whether Congress shall have authority to limit the dimensions of each Colony, to prevent those which claim, by charter, or proclamation, or commission, to the South Sea, from growing too great and powerful."¹⁴ Those two questions took until 1781 to answer.

1777: Sovereignty, Two Houses and the Vote That Failed

The war then took the Congress away from the work. British forces advanced toward Philadelphia in the winter of 1776, and the delegates moved to Baltimore, where they agreed to the first three articles in February 1777. They returned to Philadelphia in March 1777, took the Articles up again in the spring, and moved to York, Pennsylvania in September 1777 after the British took Philadelphia. At York they finished.

The sovereignty amendment

The most important change of 1777 came from a North Carolina delegate, Thomas Burke. The draft's Article III reserved only "internal police" to the states. Burke wrote to Governor Richard Caswell that this "left it in the power of the future Congress or General Council to explain away every right belonging to the States and to make their own power as unlimited as they please." He proposed an amendment "which held up the principle, that all sovereign power was in the States separately, and that particular acts of it, which should be expressly enumerated, would be exercised in conjunction, and not otherwise."¹⁵ It was, he admitted, "so little understood that it was some time before it was seconded, and South Carolina first took it up." James Wilson and Richard Henry Lee opposed it. The question was carried "eleven ayes, one no, and one divided." Burke named the no as Virginia and the divided delegation as New Hampshire.¹⁵

That vote is where Article II of the final Articles comes from: "Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled."² The Tenth Amendment of 1791 has a similar shape but omits that word. The important word in Article II is "expressly." The Constitution would drop it, and the choice to drop it would be argued about in the First Congress.

Burke wrote his letter to Caswell on April 29, and the Journals' editors print it in a note under February 15, 1777, which is their placement of the debate. The Journal text prints no roll call, so Burke's letter is the best evidence for the tally. Read it as one delegate's account.¹⁵

A Congress of two houses, defeated

Burke tried a second innovation, and it failed. The Journal prints under May 5, 1777 a paper in Burke's hand, a draft that would have turned Congress into a bicameral body with a council of state beside it and would have required three fourths of the "general Council" and nine voices in the council of state to declare any war. The Journal prints the draft with a one-line result: the question "Shall the Congress consist of two houses" passed in the negative, so "whole dropt."¹⁶ That was the last serious proposal for a federal legislature of two houses until the Virginia Plan appeared at Philadelphia ten years later.

The vote that would not move

On October 7, 1777 Congress, sitting at York, took up what was by then its thirteenth article, "In determining questions each State shall have one vote." Amendments were moved. The first would have given Rhode Island, Delaware and Georgia one vote each and every other state "one vote for every fifty thousand white inhabitants therein," with a stated reason: "that those who are bound by measures and are to pay taxes demanded by an assembly, the members of which are elected not by all the people" but by those of a particular district, "may have the same proportionable number of votes as they would have if they were personally present." On the roll call, only Pennsylvania and Virginia voted aye. North Carolina divided, and the other states, small and large alike, voted no. A second amendment, one delegate for every thirty thousand inhabitants with each delegate having "one voice," also failed.¹⁷ Even Massachusetts, whose own John Adams had spoken for proportional votes a year earlier, voted no on the first motion with its delegation.

It is worth asking why. The war was going badly. Philadelphia had fallen weeks earlier, and Saratoga, which would bring France into the war, had not yet been won (Burgoyne surrendered on October 17, 1777). Most delegates thought the immediate priority was to ratify and show a united front to Europe. Several large-state delegates who agreed in principle with Adams and Wilson judged that the price of proportional votes was no union at all.

October 1777: Land Values and Western Lands

The second great question, how to share expenses, came to a vote the following week. On October 14 Congress took up an amendment that replaced the head count with land value: each state's contribution would be set "by the value of all land within each State granted to, or surveyed for any person, as such land, and the buildings and improvements thereon shall be estimated, according to such mode as Congress shall, from time to time, direct and appoint." The yeas and nays were required. The motion was adopted.¹⁸ That is the formula in Article VIII of the final Articles. Witherspoon had argued for it in August 1776 on the ground that land and houses were "the true barometer of wealth," and Chase had called it correct in theory and impossible in practice.⁶ It would prove impossible in practice, as Lesson 3 explains: Congress never found a way to assess the value of land in thirteen states, and Article VIII became a dead letter long before the Confederation ended.

The same decision removed slavery from the quota question for the moment. Article VIII, as adopted, said nothing about slaves, and the army quotas in Article IX would be proportioned by "white inhabitants."²

On October 15, 1777 came the question that would delay ratification for more than three years. A series of motions tried to give Congress some authority over the western lands, the great stretch between the Appalachians and the Mississippi that Virginia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia claimed under their colonial charters.

The first motion simply asked each state's legislature to send Congress "a description of the territorial lands of each of their respective states, and a summary of the grants, treaties, and proofs upon which they are claimed or established." It failed.¹⁹ The second would have given Congress "the sole and exclusive right and power to ascertain and fix the western boundary of such states as claim to the South Sea, and to dispose of all land beyond the boundary so ascertained, for the benefit of the United States." It failed. The third, close to Dickinson's own draft, would have let Congress fix the western limits of states claiming to the Mississippi or the South Sea and "lay out the land beyond the boundary, so ascertained, into separate and independent states, from time to time, as the numbers and circumstances of the people thereof may require." It failed too, on a roll call.¹⁹

The votes show where each state stood. Virginia and the other claimants opposed any surrender of land, and the small states without claims (Maryland, New Jersey, Delaware) wanted a share. The Articles as adopted contained only a short sentence in Article IX, "no State shall be deprived of territory for the benefit of the United States," which closed the question in favor of the claimants. The small states did not forget it.²

November 15, 1777: Adoption and the Circular Letter

Congress finished the Articles on November 15, 1777, and appointed a committee to arrange them and to write a letter to accompany the text. The letter, dated November 17, is a short essay on why compromise was necessary.²⁰ It admits that the work had been "attended with uncommon embarrassments and delay." It says that to form a permanent union among states "differing in habits, produce, commerce, and internal police, was found to be a work which nothing but time and reflection, conspiring with a disposition to conciliate, could mature and accomplish." Then it asks the states not to expect perfection: "Hardly is it to be expected that any plan, in the variety of provisions essential to our union, should exactly correspond with the maxims and political views of every particular State." The plan proposed was "the best which could be adapted to the circumstances of all; and as that alone which affords any tolerable prospect of a general ratification."²⁰

The letter asked each state to give its delegates power to subscribe the articles of confederation and perpetual union in the name of the state, and to do it quickly, since "this salutary measure can no longer be deferred." It invoked, in closing, "the favour of our Almighty Creator visibly manifested in our protection."²⁰ The text of the Articles that follows is the one reproduced in Lesson 2.

The Articles had to be ratified by every state. Article XIII said so, and every state legislature, in its act of ratification, accepted that the alteration of any article after ratification would require the consent of every state legislature. Delegates in Congress had no power to bind their states. They could only sign after the legislatures that sent them had authorized it, and so the Articles went out in November 1777 to be ratified one state at a time.

Ratification, State by State

The record of ratification is spread across the Journals of Congress, and no single reference work agrees with every date. The table below follows the acts and certificates that the delegates laid before Congress on June 27, 1778 and on later days, which the Journals print in full, and it flags the places where other works differ.²¹ The right-hand column gives the date when the state's delegates signed the engrossed parchment.

The first signing day was July 9, 1778. Congress had ordered a clean copy on parchment after a draft proved "incorrect" on June 27, and on July 9 the blanks were filled, the Journal records, with the words "ninth," "July" and "third" (so the document is dated "the ninth day of July in the Year of our Lord One Thousand Seven Hundred and Seventy-Eight, and in the Third Year of the independence of America"). The delegates then signed state by state, starting with New Hampshire. The Journal's account is exact about who could not sign. Delegates "of the states of New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland" said that they were "not authorized to sign." The North Carolina legislature had ratified but its delegates were not in Congress, and Georgia was not present.²⁹ Ten states signed on or shortly after July 9, which is why Jefferson later recalled "ratified July 9, '78, by 10 states." His count is close but tidy: eight states signed that day, North Carolina and Georgia in the next two weeks.⁶²³

The signatures on the engrossed copy are a puzzle to anyone who expects a ceremony. The Articles were signed over almost three years by men who were not all in Congress at the same time. The Archives describe the last sheet of parchment as bearing "the signatures of delegates from all 13 states." The sheet records the dates where signers added them: Georgia's July 24, 1778; Delaware's February 22 and May 5, 1779; Maryland's March 1, 1781.⁹²³

New Jersey and Delaware sign, with a grievance

New Jersey's legislature passed an act in November 1778 that authorized its delegates to sign, and the act is notable for what it says about the text. The preamble admits that "notwithstanding the terms of the said articles of confederation and perpetual union are considered, as in divers respects unequal and disadvantageous to this State, and the objections to several of the said articles lately stated and sent to the general Congress aforesaid, on the part of this State, are still viewed as just and reasonable," the legislature acts "under the full conviction of the present necessity of acceding to the confederacy proposed, and that every separate and detached state interest ought to be postponed to the general good of the union."²⁵ Delaware passed a nearly identical act on February 1, 1779.²⁶

New Jersey's objections, which Congress had received in June 1778, deserve a paragraph because they list in advance the defects that would sink the Confederation. The legislature wanted an oath for delegates. And it wanted commerce settled: "the sole and exclusive power of regulating the trade of the United States with foreign nations, ought to be clearly vested in the Congress."³⁰ Congress did not accept that. Article IX left the power to regulate foreign trade with the states, and New Jersey's complaint turned out to be one of the most accurate predictions anyone made.

Maryland and the Western Lands, 1778 to 1781

Twelve of thirteen states had signed by May 1779. Maryland held out for another twenty-two months. The reason was land, and Maryland said so in public, in documents that Congress entered into its Journal.

June 1778: Maryland's amendments fail

On June 22, 1778 the Maryland delegates read instructions they had just received and moved that the state's objections be taken up at once. Congress agreed. They offered three amendments that day. The first would have struck "paupers" from Article IV and added that "one State shall not be burthened with the maintenance of the poor who may remove into it from any of the others." It failed with one state in favor. The second would have extended Article VIII to lands "which shall hereafter be granted to, or surveyed for any person." It failed with four states in favor and eight against. The third was the one that mattered. It would have added to Article IX that the United States in Congress "shall have the power to appoint commissioners, who shall be fully authorized and empowered to ascertain and restrict the boundaries of such of the confederated states which claim to extend to the river Mississippi, or South Sea." Debate on it was postponed overnight, and on June 23 the motion lost on a roll call.³¹

December 1778: Maryland's instructions

The Maryland House of Delegates adopted on December 15, 1778 a set of instructions to its delegates in Congress, which the delegates laid before Congress and which were entered in the Journal on May 21, 1779. They are a sustained argument, and the best statement of the small-state view that survives.³² The instructions declared that "a country unsettled at the commencement of this war, claimed by the British crown, and ceded to it by the treaty of Paris, if wrested from the common enemy by the blood and treasure of the thirteen states, should be considered as a common property, subject to be parcelled out by Congress into free, convenient and independent governments, in such manner and at such times as the wisdom of that assembly shall hereafter direct."³² They said that Maryland would not ratify "unless an article or articles be added thereto in conformity with our declaration." They also made a prediction about what would happen if the claims stood. A state that held vast western land could sell small parcels cheaply, lower its taxes, and "drain the state thus disadvantageously circumstanced of its most useful inhabitants, its wealth." The signatory states, Maryland wrote, would soon regard the Articles "as no longer binding," and "will eagerly embrace the first occasion of asserting their just rights and securing their independence."³² The accompanying declaration was read in Congress on January 6, 1779.³²

The instructions were also unusually forthright about motive. They said Maryland would betray "the trust reposed in us by our constituents" if the delegates signed without the change. Maryland was not the only state that cared about the land. Virginia's General Assembly answered with a remonstrance against Maryland's claims, and the other landless states, New Jersey and Delaware, ratified in the end with only a complaint on the record. Maryland alone refused.

1779 and 1780: how the logjam broke

On April 7, 1779, the General Assembly of Connecticut authorized its delegates to ratify the Articles with the other twelve states, "always provided that the state of Maryland be not thereby excluded from acceding to said confederation at any time hereafter." The Assembly gave its reason: "the confederation of thirteen states may not be considered as obligatory on twelve states only."³³ Nothing came of it. The Articles needed all thirteen.

The break came in 1780 from New York. On February 19, 1780, its legislature passed "An act to facilitate the completion of the Articles of Confederation," which authorized its delegates to restrict New York's western boundaries and cede the land to the United States "as a common fund for the expences of the war." The preamble says New York acted because the Articles "have not proved acceptable to all the states" and because "a portion of the waste and uncultivated territory" ought to be a common fund. Congress read the act on March 7, 1780.³⁴

On September 6, 1780 Congress took up a committee report on Maryland's instructions, Virginia's remonstrance and New York's act. The committee declined to rule on "the merits or the policy of the instructions or declaration of the general assembly of Maryland." It said the issues "involve questions, a discussion of which was declined on mature consideration, when the articles of confederation were debated." Instead it urged the claimant states to surrender a portion of their territorial claims, since "they cannot be preserved entire without endangering the stability of the general confederacy," and it praised New York's act as "an example which in the opinion of your committee deserves applause, and will produce imitation." Congress adopted the report and recommended to Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia that they cede lands, and to Maryland that it sign.³⁵

Then, on October 10, 1780, Congress resolved what would happen to ceded land. Unappropriated lands ceded to the United States "shall be granted and disposed of for the common benefit of all the United States that shall be members of the federal union, and be settled and formed into distinct republican states, which shall become members of the federal union, and have the same rights of sovereignty, freedom and independence, as the other states." Each new state would contain "not less than one hundred nor more than one hundred and fifty miles square, or as near thereto as circumstances will admit," and cessions would carry a guarantee of the remaining territory of the ceding state.³⁶ A resolution that began as an answer to Maryland became the founding promise of the territories: new states would enter as equals.

New York's deed was entered on Congress's books on March 1, 1781.³⁴ Virginia, for its part, had on January 2, 1781 "yield[ed] to the Congress of the United States, for the benefit of the said states, all right, title and claim" to the land northwest of the Ohio, subject to conditions. Congress did not accept the terms at once, and Virginia revised its act in October 1783. The deed of cession, signed by Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Hardy, Arthur Lee and James Monroe, was presented to Congress on March 1, 1784.³⁷

February and March 1781: Maryland signs

Maryland did not wait for the deed. Its legislature passed "An act to empower the delegates of this State in Congress to subscribe and ratify the Articles of Confederation," with the House of Delegates assenting on January 30, 1781 and the Senate on February 2, 1781. The act is candid about why. It recites that "the common enemy is encouraged by this State not acceding to the Confederation," and that "our friends and illustrious ally are impressed with an idea that the common cause would be promoted by our formally acceding." The French minister, the Chevalier de la Luzerne, had pressed Maryland. But the act also reserves the point of principle: "by acceding to the said Confederation, this State doth not relinquish, or intend to relinquish, any right or interest she hath, with the other united or confederated states, to the back country." And it declares that "no article in the said Confederation, can or ought to bind this or any other State, to guarantee any exclusive claim of any particular State, to the soil of the said back lands."²⁷

The delegates presented the act in Congress on February 12. On February 22 Maryland's delegates took their seats with power to sign, and Congress set Thursday, March 1, for "compleating the Confederation." Madison was named to the committee to plan a public announcement.³⁸ On March 1, 1781, John Hanson and Daniel Carroll signed for Maryland. The next day, March 2, the Journal opens: "The ratification of the Articles of Confederation being yesterday compleated by the accession of the State of Maryland: The United States met in Congress," with Samuel Huntington of Connecticut presiding.²⁸ The Congress of the Confederation had begun, three years and three and a half months after the Continental Congress adopted the text.⁹

What Changed From Dickinson's Draft to the Final Text

The table sets the Dickinson draft of July 12, 1776 beside the text that took effect on March 1, 1781. Quotations come from the two documents as printed, and the notes name the vote or debate that produced each change where the record names one.

Myths and Misreadings

"The Articles took effect in 1777."

They were adopted by Congress on November 15, 1777 and took effect on March 1, 1781. For the three and a half years between, Congress governed by the Articles' rules in practice, but it had no legal authority from them, because the document said it bound no state until all had ratified. Several state acts of ratification, New York's among them, said so in terms. New York's act provided that nothing in the Articles "shall bind, or oblige, or be deemed, construed or esteemed to bind or oblige the Government, Legislature, people, Subjects, inhabitants, or residents of this State, until the said above recited Articles have been duly ratified and confirmed by or in behalf of all the said United States."²¹

"The Articles were written by men who feared any government."

The drafters wanted a union strong enough to wage war. The same Dickinson who gave Congress no power to tax asked, in the margin of his own draft, how to describe the power to erect forts in a state that objected. Franklin and Adams argued for proportional votes. The fear was of each other: of large states over small ones, and of a Congress that might "explain away every right belonging to the States," as Burke put it.¹⁰¹⁵

"Maryland refused to sign out of spite."

Maryland's objection was stated in public, with arguments, and Congress itself eventually endorsed the substance. Congress's resolution of October 10, 1780 turned Maryland's "common property" idea into policy for ceded lands. Maryland's act of ratification still reserved its claim.³²³⁶²⁷

"The Declaration of Independence and the Articles are the same kind of document."

Congress approved the Declaration 27 days after the Lee resolution. The Articles took 526 days from the Lee resolution to Congress's adoption and 1,202 more to take effect. The Declaration asserted separation. The Articles organized the states that had separated.⁵⁹

Key Documents

Each document was read in the text cited. Primary sources are listed in the Sources section below.

Why This Matters to Idaho Officials and Voters

Idaho was not part of the western land at issue in 1780. The Articles of Confederation reached the Mississippi and no farther, and the Pacific Northwest was still a matter between Britain, Spain and Native nations. But the way Idaho's own constitution is written answers the Articles at three points.

Article II of the Articles placed sovereignty in the states: "Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence."² Idaho's Constitution begins elsewhere. Article I, section 2 says "All political power is inherent in the people. Government is instituted for their equal protection and benefit, and they have the right to alter, reform or abolish the same whenever they may deem it necessary."³⁹ The difference is not a technicality. Under the Articles, a state and its legislature were the sovereign parties; under Idaho's text, the people hold the power and the government exists for them.

Article XIII of the Articles said "the Union shall be perpetual."² Idaho's Constitution, Article I, section 3, says "The state of Idaho is an inseparable part of the American Union, and the Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the land."⁴⁰ Both clauses answer the question of whether a state may leave. The Articles answered it with a promise among states. Idaho's text answers it with a declaration made by the people of the state, and ties it to a Constitution that, unlike the Articles, can enforce itself against individuals.

The October 10, 1780 resolution, which promised that new states "shall become members of the federal union, and have the same rights of sovereignty, freedom and independence, as the other states," is the earliest statement of the principle later called equal footing.³⁶ Idaho, admitted in 1890, is one of the states that entered the Union on that principle. Lesson 4 follows the principle into the Northwest Ordinance, and shows how another feature of the 1780s, the public land survey, still shapes land ownership in the state.

Using This in Reporting and Civic Life

Checking a claim about "what the Founders intended"

A speaker at a county meeting says the Articles of Confederation proved that the Founders wanted a weak national government. The record is more specific. Congress rejected, on a roll call on October 7, 1777, a plan that would have given larger states more votes. It rejected, on October 15, three plans for national control of western land. Those votes show what the delegates were willing to give up in 1777 to get thirteen signatures. They do not show what the delegates would have preferred if they could have had a national government with a free hand. Franklin, Adams, Wilson and Rush argued for a stronger and more proportional Congress. A reporter checking the speaker's claim can pull the Journal pages cited in this lesson and read the roll calls directly.

Reading a state's ratification act

The state acts are short and each one is a primary source about that state's priorities. New York, Rhode Island and Massachusetts each attached conditions. New Jersey and Delaware complained on the record. Georgia proposed amendments and Maryland reserved a claim. A resident writing about a state's history can quote the actual language, and a candidate can use it to show that disagreement over how to share power in the Union goes back to the beginning.

When a council or board says "we have always done it this way"

The 1777 sovereignty clause is a model of a rule that has to be read for what it excludes. "Expressly delegated" means that a power not named in the text did not belong to Congress. Local bodies today work under similar rules, such as Dillon's Rule states in which a city has only the powers a statute gives it. A clerk or reporter asked to resolve a dispute over a board's authority can ask the same question the Articles posed: where does the document say the power was given?

Where to find the records

The Journals of the Continental Congress, 1774 to 1789, are in thirty-four volumes and are available free in full text at the Internet Archive. The National Archives hold the engrossed Articles, and the Yale Avalon Project hosts the text and Franklin's and Dickinson's drafts. The lists of sources below give working links for each.

Related Lessons

Next in this series: Lesson 2, The Thirteen Articles, Clause by Clause, which reads the final text article by article. Forward in the course: Module 1, From the Charters to Philadelphia (the constitutional background); Module 6, Amending the Constitution (how the unanimity rule of Article XIII became the three-fourths rule of Article V); Module 14, Article IV: The States and the Union (the descendants of Articles IV and the western-lands clauses); and Module 16, Article VII: Ratification (how the Constitution replaced the Articles without the consent of every state). Also in this series: Lesson 3, Lesson 4, Lesson 5 and Lesson 6.

Sources & Further Reading

Primary Sources

• Avalon Project, Articles of Confederation (March 1, 1781)
• National Archives, Milestone Documents: Articles of Confederation
• Avalon Project, Albany Plan of Union (1754)
• Avalon Project, Franklin's Articles of Confederation (July 21, 1775), with the Wythe comments
• Avalon Project, Resolution of Richard Henry Lee (June 7, 1776)
• Avalon Project, Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union (Dickinson draft, July 12, 1776)
• Avalon Project, Thomas Jefferson's Autobiography (includes his notes on the 1776 Confederation debates)
• Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 5 (June to October 1776)
• Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 7 (January to May 1777)
• Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 9 (October to December 1777)
• Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 11 (May to September 1778)
• Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 12 (September to December 1778)
• Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 13 (January to April 1779)
• Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 14 (April to September 1779)
• Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 17 (May to September 1780)
• Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 18 (September to December 1780)
• Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 19 (January to April 1781)
• Journals of the Continental Congress, vol. 26 (January to May 1784)
• Idaho Constitution, art. I, section 2
• Idaho Constitution, art. I, section 3

Secondary Sources and Further Reading

• Wikipedia, Articles of Confederation (used only for the Virginia date discussion and the list of reference dates; verify against the Journals)

Footnotes

1. Albany Plan of Union (1754), items 1 to 6, Avalon Project, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/albany.asp. The plan proposed a Grand Council of 48 seats from eleven colonies and said that after the first three years each colony's seats would follow its contributions "so as that the number to be chosen by any one Province be not more than seven, nor less than two." The page notes that the plan was sent to the colonial assemblies; none adopted it.
2. Articles of Confederation (1781), art. II (reserved powers), art. V (delegations of two to seven; one vote per state), art. VIII (land-value quotas), art. IX ("no State shall be deprived of territory for the benefit of the United States"), art. XIII ("the Union shall be perpetual"), Avalon Project, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/artconf.asp. Text also at the National Archives, https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/articles-of-confederation.
3. Franklin's Articles of Confederation, read July 21, 1775, in Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 2, pp. 195 to 199 (July 21, 1775), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin02unit. The Avalon Project reprint is at https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/contcong_07-21-75.asp. The editors' note quotes Charles Thomson's entry that Franklin "submitted to their Consideration the following Sketch of Articles of Confederation" and concludes the Articles "were probably submitted by Franklin of his own motion." The articles quoted here are arts. I (name), II (league of friendship), V (powers), VI (taxes by male polls), VII (delegates by polls), VIII (votes), IX (executive council), XI (Six Nations), XII (amendment) and XIII (admission of other colonies), plus the closing paragraph on reconciliation.
4. Same document, note 2: "A manuscript in the Library of Congress gives a copy of the Franklin Articles of Confederation and some comments or amendments made by G: W., i. e. George Wythe." The table lists "By the Albany plan 48" and "The present plan (5,000) polls to a Delegate supposed 124 1/2"; the remark "Massach: Pensylvania Virginia & Maryland 66 members more than half the whole"; and a proposed Article 8 under which, if any colony was dissatisfied with the majority, "the Colonies shall be Called separately and Each Colony whatever its No of Delegates may be, shall have only one vote." https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/contcong_07-21-75.asp
5. Resolution of Richard Henry Lee, June 7, 1776, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 5, p. 425 (June 7, 1776), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin05unit. Avalon text at https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/contcong_06-07-76.asp. The three resolutions, in the form entered in the Journal, are quoted.
6. Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography (written 1821), Avalon Project, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/jeffauto.asp. The June 7 motion appears in his account of that day. The notes on the Confederation debates of July 30, 31 and August 1, 1776 appear in the same text after his notes on the Declaration of Independence; he says there that "as the two following are of the earlier debates on the Confederation, which I took in like manner." All debate quotations from Chase, Adams, Wilson, Harrison, Witherspoon, Franklin, Rush and Hopkins are from Jefferson's notes as he printed them in 1821. They are one delegate's notes, edited by the author, and are not an official record.
7. Resolution of June 11, 1776 and appointment of the committee on June 12, 1776, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 5, pp. 431 and 433 (June 11 and 12, 1776), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin05unit.
8. Addition of Francis Hopkinson to the committee, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 5, p. 491 (June 28, 1776), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin05unit.
9. National Archives, Milestone Documents, Articles of Confederation, https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/articles-of-confederation. The page says the Articles were adopted November 15, 1777, in force March 1, 1781; it calls Dickinson "a delegate from Delaware"; it describes the engrossed copy as "six sheets of parchment stitched together" whose last sheet "bears the signatures of delegates from all 13 states." The arithmetic from Nov. 15, 1777 to March 1, 1781 (3 years, 3 months and 14 days; 1,202 days) is this lesson's.
10. Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, reported July 12, 1776, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 5, pp. 546 to 554 (July 12, 1776), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin05unit. Avalon text at https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/contcong_07-12-76.asp. The text, Dickinson's marginal queries and the editors' note that the manuscript is "in the writing of John Dickinson" and was used by Charles Thomson to record changes are in note 1 and the notes that follow. The Journal also records the order that "eighty copies, and no more" be printed and the printer sworn to secrecy.
11. The undated Franklin manuscript is printed with the Dickinson draft, Avalon Project, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/contcong_07-12-76.asp. The editors write that it "must have been prepared in the interval between July 12 and August 20." Its quoted reasons are the first and second; the endorsement is Franklin's.
12. Committee of the whole on the Articles, from July 22, 1776, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 5, pp. 600 and following (July 22, 1776), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin05unit.
13. Report of the committee of the whole and the second printed form, August 20, 1776, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 5, pp. 674 to 689 (Aug. 20, 1776), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin05unit. The editors print the first and second printed forms in parallel; Charles Thomson's marginal notes record "agreed" and "postponed" against particular articles, including Art. XI and the passage on Indian land purchases.
14. John Adams to Abigail Adams, July 29, 1776, quoted in a note in Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 5, p. 616 (July 30, 1776), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin05unit. The note cites Force, American Archives, 5th series, vol. 1, p. 637.
15. Thomas Burke to Governor Richard Caswell, April 29, 1777, quoted in a note in Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 7, p. 123 (Feb. 15, 1777 (note)), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin07unit. The note cites North Carolina Colonial Records, vol. 11, p. 461. The Journal text under that date does not print the roll call.
16. Burke's draft on a two-house Congress and the endorsement "passed in the Negative. So whole dropt," Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 7, pp. 328 to 329 (May 5, 1777), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin07unit.
17. Roll calls on the amendment to Article XIII (votes in Congress), Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 9, pp. 778 to 780 (Oct. 7, 1777), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin09unit. Reading of the printed roll call: Pennsylvania aye; Virginia aye; North Carolina divided; all other delegations present no. The result is stated as "So it passed in the negative." The second amendment (one delegate per 30,000 inhabitants, one voice each) was also put on a roll call.
18. Amendment to Article IX (land-value quotas), "So it was resolved in the affirmative," and the resolution on delegate terms, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 9, pp. 800 to 803 (Oct. 14, 1777), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin09unit.
19. Three motions on territorial limits and western lands, "passed in the negative," Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 9, pp. 806 to 808 (Oct. 15, 1777), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin09unit.
20. Articles of Confederation as agreed to Nov. 15, 1777, and the circular letter dated Nov. 17, 1777, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 9, pp. 907 to 934 (Nov. 15 and 17, 1777), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin09unit.
21. Powers of the states to their delegates to ratify, entered under June 27, 1778, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 11, pp. 662 to 671 (June 27, 1778), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin11unit. Includes New Hampshire (Mar. 4, 1778), Massachusetts (Mar. 10), Rhode Island (assembly of the 2d Monday in February; governor's certificate Feb. 18), Connecticut (Feb. 12), New York (Senate Jan. 29, Assembly Feb. 3, Council Feb. 6, exemplified Feb. 16), Pennsylvania (Mar. 5), Virginia (printed as Dec. 15, 1778), North Carolina (Senate letter, Apr. 25, 1778), South Carolina (Assembly Feb. 4, assented Feb. 5) and Georgia (Feb. 26, with amendments). The Virginia, North Carolina and New Hampshire dates are discussed in the notes that follow in this table.
22. The printed Journal gives the Virginia resolution as dated "In General Assembly, December 15, 1778," in Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 11, p. 669 (June 27, 1778), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin11unit. That date cannot be right, since the resolution speaks of the articles "proposed by Congress the 7th day of November last" and Daniel Roberdeau wrote from York on December 29, 1777 that "The House of Burgesses, in Virginia, have unanimously consented to the confederation" and directed their delegates to confirm it on the 10th of March (quoted in a note in Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 9, p. 1058, https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin09unit.). The Wikipedia article on the Articles cites Dyer, First Ownership of Ohio Lands, p. 10, for the explanation that the Journal printed the date from a Congress manuscript volume in error, and gives Dec. 16, 1777: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articles_of_Confederation. The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution prints the Virginia resolutions of ratification under the date 16 December 1777, with the same text the Journal prints, which supports the Wikipedia date: https://archive.csac.history.wisc.edu/cssimages/7._Virginia_Resolutions_of_Ratification.pdf. This lesson did not read the Virginia statute book itself.
23. The engrossed signature sheet as printed, with signing dates for the later signers (Georgia's Walton and Telfair July 24, 1778; North Carolina July 21, 1778; New Hampshire's John Wentworth Aug. 8, 1778; Delaware's McKean Feb. 22, 1779 and Dickinson May 5, 1779; Maryland's Hanson and Carroll March 1 [1781]), Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 19, pp. 222 to 223 (March 2, 1781), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin19unit.
24. North Carolina's act: the Journal prints "In Senate, 25th of April, 1778," and a letter that both houses "have Unanimously acceded." Wikipedia's Articles page lists April 5, 1778: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articles_of_Confederation. This lesson could not resolve the discrepancy and uses the Journal's printed date, labeled as the Senate letter. The North Carolina delegates signed July 21, 1778, per Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 11, p. 709 (July 21, 1778), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin11unit.
25. New Jersey's act authorizing delegates to sign, "at Trenton, the twentieth day of November," and the signing on Nov. 26, 1778, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 12, pp. 1162 to 1164 (Nov. 25 and 26, 1778), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin12unit.
26. Delaware's act, "Passed at Dover, February 1, 1779," laid before Congress by McKean, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 13, pp. 186 to 188 (Feb. 15 and 16, 1779), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin13unit. McKean's signing on Feb. 22, 1779 is at p. 236.
27. Maryland's "act to empower the delegates of this State in Congress to subscribe and ratify the Articles of Confederation," with "By the House of Delegates, January 30th, 1781, read and assented to" and "By the Senate, February 2d, 1781," laid before Congress Feb. 12, 1781, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 19, pp. 138 to 140 (Feb. 12, 1781), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin19unit.
28. Maryland signing and the Journal entry for March 2, 1781, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 19, pp. 221 to 224 (March 1 and 2, 1781), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin19unit. The signature list shows "John Hanson, March 1," and "Daniel Carroll, do." The Journal for Feb. 22, 1781 (p. 186) records that Maryland's delegates "having taken their seats in Congress with powers to sign the Articles of Confederation," Congress assigned "Thursday next" to complete the Confederation and appointed Walton, Madison and Mathews to report a mode of announcing it.
29. The July 9, 1778 signing, including the order omitting the phrase "which articles were by Congress proposed to the legislatures," the filling of blanks with "ninth," "July" and "third," and the statement that delegates of New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland "informed Congress that they were not authorized to sign," Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 11, pp. 677 to 678 (July 9, 1778), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin11unit. The Journal for June 27, 1778 (p. 662) records that the first engrossed copy was found "incorrect."
30. Representation of the Legislative Council and General Assembly of New Jersey to Congress, read June 1778, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 11, pp. 648 to 650 (June 24 to 26, 1778), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin11unit. The quoted passage appears in the second of the objections listed.
31. Maryland's motions of June 22 and 23, 1778, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 11, pp. 631 to 637 (June 22 and 23, 1778), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin11unit. The first two motions are reported with their vote counts ("one State only answering ay"; "4 states answering aye, 8 answering no"). The third, on boundaries, was postponed on June 22 and defeated on a roll call June 23; this lesson did not read the tally with certainty and reports only the result.
32. Instructions of the Maryland General Assembly to its delegates (adopted Dec. 15, 1778; "A true copy from the proceedings of December 15, 1778"), entered in the Journal on May 21, 1779, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 14, pp. 620 to 622 (May 21, 1779), https://archive.org/details/journals-of-the-continental-congress-1774-1789-vol-14-apr-23-sept-1-1779. The editors note the accompanying declaration "was read in Congress January 6, 1779" (vol. 13, p. 29).
33. Connecticut's act of April 7, 1779, laid before Congress May 21, 1779, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 14, pp. 624 to 625 (May 21, 1779), https://archive.org/details/journals-of-the-continental-congress-1774-1789-vol-14-apr-23-sept-1-1779.
34. New York's act "to facilitate the completion of the Articles of Confederation and perpetual union," read in Congress March 7, 1780, and New York's instrument of cession entered Feb. 28 and March 1, 1781, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 19, pp. 208 to 211 (Feb. 28 to Mar. 1, 1781), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin19unit.
35. Committee report on Maryland's instructions, Virginia's remonstrance and New York's act, adopted Sept. 6, 1780, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 17, pp. 806 to 808 (Sept. 6, 1780), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin17unit.
36. Resolution on the disposition of ceded lands, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 18, pp. 914 to 915 (Oct. 10, 1780), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin18unit. The Journal pages for that day print the resolution under the entry that follows the heading for Oct. 9 in the scan; the resolution is dated Oct. 10, 1780 in standard references and in Virginia's later recital (see the Virginia note).
37. Virginia's act of October 1783 and the form of the deed of cession executed by Jefferson, Hardy, Lee and Monroe, presented to Congress March 1, 1784, reciting that Virginia "did, on the 2d day of January, in the year 1781, yield to the Congress of the United States" its claim northwest of the Ohio, Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 26, pp. 113 to 118 (March 1, 1784), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin26unit.
38. The Feb. 22, 1781 entry in Journals of the Continental Congress, ed. Worthington C. Ford and others (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1904 to 1937), vol. 19, p. 186 (Feb. 22, 1781), https://archive.org/details/journalsofcontin19unit.
39. Idaho Constitution, art. I, section 2, Idaho Legislature, https://legislature.idaho.gov/statutesrules/idconst/ArtI/Sect2/. Read October 18, 2026.
40. Idaho Constitution, art. I, section 3, Idaho Legislature, https://legislature.idaho.gov/statutesrules/idconst/ArtI/Sect3/. Read October 18, 2026.