Tag: Articles of Confederation
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Considering Secession
An intriguing discussion erupted after a recent post by Connor. I was soon asking what history would have looked like if the South had been allowed to secede rather than fight the Civil War. Later another commenter asked an even better question: By allowing the South to secede, wouldn’t that be setting up a dangerous…
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Annapolis Convention
It was not so long ago that I became aware of the Annapolis Convention of 1786. Though I had started reading the resulting report before I got my pocket Constitution I was very excited to see that it was included there. It was there that I finally sat down and read the report through. I…
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Federalist Nos. 41 – 43
These papers by Madison cover topics that had previously been addressed by Hamilton in Federalist Nos. 24 – 28, and 30 – 36 (covered here, here, and here). Federalist No. 41 focuses primarily on the issue of standing armies, Federalist No. 42 concerns issues of foreign relations, law enforcement, and interstate commerce, and Federalist No.…
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Federalist No. 23
Federalist No. 23 uses the experience of the Articles of Confederation – specifically the experience related to the arrangement whereby the central government could request men and arms for the defense of the nation but did not have the power to enforce those requests on the citizens of the states – to argue that a…
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Federalist Nos. 21 – 22
Federalist No. 21 and Federalist No. 22 close the enumeration of the deficiencies of the United States under the Articles of Confederation. The argument that the federal government was impotent under the articles is well known but I did pick up two important points here. From Federalist 21: It is a signal advantage of taxes…
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Articles of Confederation
In the midst of my efforts to evaluate all the Federalist Papers, I realized that I had never read the Articles of Confederation which was the basis against which the Constitution was written and against which the Federalist Papers were generally basing their arguments. The Articles of Confederation were the first attempt by the states…