-The creation of state constitutions
-Issues in the creation of a central government
-The Articles of Confederation
-States' rights versus national unity

[SLIDE 1]

Although the American government to a large extent was based on British governmental principles, there were numerous important differences. American leaders were arguing tough questions about how to construct a new government for the United States. George Mason's 1776 Declaration of Rights and Thomas Jefferson's 1786 Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom are two examples of hammering out American values at the state level. State legislators were the first to address the political and legal ramifications of independence when they wrote their state constitutions. 

[SLIDE 2]

While many of the issues were first resolved on the state level, the various states arrived at diverse answers. In Pennsylvania, authority was strongly democratic and entirely focused on the hands of a single elected legislature. In Maryland, power rested most strongly in the hands of the elite. Massachusetts, which had especially suffered under the Crown, was reluctant to grant much authority to a government. How would such differences be reconciled at the national level?

[SLIDE 3]

And then there was the question of who could vote for the new legislatures. In Britain at the time, voting was a privilege, not a right, and the privilege was far from universal. Founding fathers like John Adams were concerned that political discussion of voting rights would lead to everyone wanting that right. Full democracy was not what they had in mind. Many political leaders were elitist and doubted the capacity of the average person to make correct decisions. Voting rights varied according to state law. As we saw in Lesson 22, the state constitutions of Pennsylvania and Georgia did away with the property requirement so that all free white men could vote. In Maryland, at the other extreme, property ownership was requisite for voting, but office holders also needed to be wealthy. At the time of the Articles of Confederation, free African Americans who owned land were able to vote in several states. Women were only able to vote in one, and that didn't last long.

[SLIDE 4]

In the 1780s, states began revising their constitutions to provide more power to their governments, while at the same time adding measures to prevent the abuse of power. Although in most instances wealth was reinstated as a requirement for holding office, the rights of common citizens were safeguarded. 

[SLIDE 5]

Once the Declaration of Independence was completed, the Continental Congress began creating a framework for the new national government. The government they created would be unrecognizable to us today. The Articles of Confederation, having gradually been ratified by all 13 states, went into effect on March 1, 1781. The Articles were somewhat shortsighted because they were largely a reaction to the injustices that had led to the revolution. For this reason, they avoided whatever had caused problems in the past. For example, because the Crown was the source of past injustice, the Articles of Confederation completely eliminated the executive branch of government. The central government the Articles did create was weak, leaving most authority in the hands of the individual states and failing to address important national matters like taxes and the regulation of trade. Instead, they gave the power of the purse to local governments; today it belongs to Congress.

[SLIDE 6]

Issues concerning states' rights were already manifest in the earliest stages of government formation. As first framed, the central government was weak, to the advantage of the states. Many of the founders felt that local representation could best understand and represent the interests of individuals. Yet because the Articles were so careful to uphold the superior authority of individual state governments, it was difficult to reach consensus among the states. The state legislatures were to choose their own delegations to Congress, but how many votes was each state delegation to receive in the Congress? Pennsylvania's John Dickinson, who had written the first draft of the Articles as well as his earlier Letters from a Farmer, advocated the thoroughly democratic, one state, one vote, position. It was that position that won the day. 

[SLIDE 7]

But then, how was the Confederation to be paid for when it had no right of taxation? The states agreed they would each need to contribute, but the southern states didn't want their contribution to be based on population because they didn't want their large slave population to be included in what they had to pay. In the end, the payments to the Confederation were based not on population, but rather on the value of fixed property like land and buildings, thus avoiding the question of whether slaves were property.

[SLIDE 8]

Congress submitted the Articles for ratification in November 1777, but they weren't fully ratified until 1781. One key area of discord was the question of who owned the western frontier lands. What was called the Northwest Territory, or more properly, the Territory Northwest of the River Ohio, comprised what would one day be parts of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. In John Dickinson's draft of the Articles of Confederation, he designated the Northwest Territory as national land, but several states—Virginia, Massachusetts, New York, and Connecticut—had competing claims on the territory based on their colonial charters. The western boundary of Pennsylvania was also not clear. Squabbling over control of the frontier lands held up ratification of the Articles of Confederation. One by one the states ratified the Articles of Confederation, but Maryland was the sole holdout. With no ability itself to expand westward, Maryland feared other states would grow too large and powerful, to its own detriment. Only when the last of the states had ceded its claim to the western lands did Maryland ratify the Articles. Now the U.S. government would control how the land would be settled.