Who Wrote the Articles of Confederation?
The defeat of Great Britain during the Revolutionary War was the beginning of the official independence of the thirteen colonies. The Articles of Confederation were first composed during the Revolutionary War and finalized after the signing of the Treaty of Paris, which was the document signed by the Congress of the Confederation and Great Britain which officially ended the war.
The Articles of Confederation was the first constitution of the United States of America. This document was established by the Second Continental Congress, and it was this document which made the independence and the union of the colonies officially the United States of America. The Second Continental Congress consisted of delegates from each of the original thirteen colonies. Each of these delegates played a part in writing the very first constitution of the United States of America.
It is important to note that the writing of the Articles of Confederation was a joint effort by many delegates of the Second Continental Congress. There were delegates selected from each of the colonies to assemble the Articles of Confederation. Each of these chosen delegates helped to draft the Articles of Confederation for ratification by all thirteen states.
The names of the writers are unclear; however it is known that the five-page Articles of Confederation consisted of thirteen Articles which became the starting point for a solid Constitution in the United States of America. There are many that believe the Articles were needed to simply show that the colonies were a unified group during and after the Revolutionary War.
Because this document was essentially the rules by which the United States would function, assistance of delegates from each state was necessary as was the ratification of the document by each state.
Ratification of the Articles of Confederation
After the Articles of Confederation were written by the delegates of the Second Continental Congress, the document had to be signed by each state in order for it to become official and to officially establish the United States of America as an independent country. This process of obtaining signatures for the Articles of Confederation is known as ratification. The ratification process was basically each state approving of the different aspects of the document.
Although the Articles of Confederation were sent to the states in November 1777, it took until March of 1781 for each state to approve of the Articles of Confederation in full. The signing of this document established the original thirteen colonies as the United States of America and also provided the official governmental policies for the country.
The signers of the Articles were:
- New Hampshire - Josiah Bartlett and John Wentworth Jr.
- Massachusetts - John Hancock, Samuel Adams, Elbridge Gerry, Francis Dana, James Lovel and Samuel Holten
- Rhode Island - William Ellery, Henry Marchant and John Collins
- Connecticut - Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, Oliver Wolcott, Titus Hosmer and Andrew Adams
- New York -James Duane, Francis Lewis, William Duer and Gouverneur Morris
- New Jersey -John Witherspoon and Nathanial Scudder
- Pennsylvania -Robert Morris, Daniel Roberdeau, Jonathan Bayard Smith, William Clingan and Joseph Reed
- Delaware - Thomas McKean, John Dickinson and Nicholas VanDyke
- Maryland - John Hanson and Daniel Carroll
- Virginia - Richard Henry Lee, John Banister, Thomas Adams, John Harvie and Francis Lightfoot Lee
- North Carolina - John Penn, Cornelius Harnett and John Williams
- South Carolina - Henry Laurens, William Henry Drayton, John Mathews, Richard Hutson and Thomas Heyward Jr.
- Georgia - John Walton, Edward Telfair and Edward Langworthy
While the Articles of Confederation proved to be effective in presenting the appearance of unified colonies, there were many issues that needed to be addressed about how the United States would ultimately run its government. The Articles of the Confederation were just the beginning of a process to make the United States into a solid union.