The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union was the first written constitution of the United States, drafted by the Second Continental Congress beginning in 1777 and ratified on 1 March 1781. It established a confederal government for the thirteen original states, granting sovereign authority primarily to the states while creating a weak central legislature with limited powers. The Articles governed the United States through the end of the Revolutionary War and the immediate postwar period until being superseded by the current U.S. Constitution on 4 March 1789.

Under the Articles, Congress served as the sole branch of the federal government - there was no independent executive and no federal judiciary. Each state held one vote in Congress regardless of population or size. Congress was granted authority to conduct foreign affairs, declare war, maintain armed forces, coin money, and operate a postal service. It lacked the power to levy taxes directly, instead requisitioning funds from state governments, and could not regulate interstate or foreign commerce. Amendments required unanimous consent of all thirteen states. Major legislative acts required approval by nine of the thirteen state delegations.

The Articles were drafted deliberately to prevent the concentration of central power that American colonists had experienced under British rule. The document reflected a political philosophy that prioritized state sovereignty and was skeptical of distant, centralized authority. For a fuller treatment of the political circumstances of its drafting, ratification, and eventual replacement, see the Articles of Confederation - History page.

Historians and political theorists continue to debate the significance and legacy of the Articles. One set of questions concerns whether the deficiencies of the Articles were as severe as the Federalist framers claimed, or whether the document was a workable system undermined by postwar economic disruption and particular political interests. A related debate concerns what the replacement of the Articles with the Constitution represented - whether it was a necessary correction, a consolidation of elite power, or a partial reversal of the decentralizing impulses of the Revolution. These questions are addressed in the Articles of Confederation - Debate page.

• Federalist critique - The Articles created a fatally weak central government incapable of managing national debt, regulating commerce, or projecting military force, making the Constitutional Convention of 1787 a necessity. See Federalist Critique Viewpoint.
• Anti-Federalist defense - The Articles embodied the genuine republican and decentralist principles of the Revolution; their replacement concentrated power in ways that threatened individual liberty and state sovereignty. See Anti-Federalist Defense Viewpoint.
• Progressive revisionist - The move from the Articles to the Constitution served the economic interests of creditors, merchants, and landholders at the expense of debtors and ordinary citizens, as argued notably by historian Charles Beard. See Progressive Revisionist Viewpoint.
• Neo-confederalist - The Articles represent a more constitutionally legitimate model of American federalism, and later assertions of federal supremacy represent departures from the founding compact. See Neo-Confederalist Viewpoint.

• Articles of Confederation - History
• Articles of Confederation - Debate
• Continental Congress
• United States Constitution
• United States - History
• Constitutional Convention (1787)
• American Revolution
• Federalism
• Anti-Federalists

1. Jensen, Merrill. The Articles of Confederation: An Interpretation of the Social-Constitutional History of the American Revolution, 1774-1781. University of Wisconsin Press, 1940.
2. Rakove, Jack N. The Beginnings of National Politics: An Interpretive History of the Continental Congress. Alfred A. Knopf, 1979.
3. McDonald, Forrest. E Pluribus Unum: The Formation of the American Republic, 1776-1790. Houghton Mifflin, 1965.
4. Beard, Charles A. An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States. Macmillan, 1913.
5. Morris, Richard B. The Forging of the Union, 1781-1789. Harper & Row, 1987.
6. “Articles of Confederation.” Avalon Project. Yale Law School, Lillian Goldman Law Library. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/artconf.asp