Articles of Confederation
DBQ: Articles of Confederation Following the Declaration of Independence on July 4th of 1776 and the birth of the United States of America, one of the most important tasks facing the new nation was setting up a constitution - a set of laws to govern the 13 states. After much debate and discussion, the Articles of Confederation, the nations first constitution, came into effect in March 1781. The Articles were in general weak, but provided adequate protection and rights as the people of that time were concerned with the central government growing too strong and another king gorge like figure taking the thrown and force the newly free nation back under monarch rule. The government set up under the Articles of Confederation only had one branch and that was congress, so in effect congress was all powerful but not as powerful as the individual states because as Document A indicates that with one state rejecting congress nothing could pass.