The Articles of Confederation

The Articles of Confederation pocket edition puts the country’s first framework in your hand. Passed by the Continental Congress in 1777 and ratified by the states in 1781, the Articles bound thirteen republics into a “firm league of friendship.” Read straight through — preamble, thirteen articles, and conclusion — and you’ll see federalism in its earliest American form. Not theory in the abstract, but rules on paper: who may coin, who commands in war, who pays, and on what authority.

Why study it now? Because the contrast with 1789 clarifies what the Constitution fixed — and what it preserved. Under the Confederation, enforcement depended on good faith rather than federal power. That design strained under war debt and interstate friction, yet it also drew a bright line around central authority. Article II says it plainly: “Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence.” Reading those words beside the later Tenth Amendment sharpens the meaning of “delegated” and “reserved.”

This small volume is built for marginal notes and quick cross-checks. Start with the Articles; then set them beside parallel clauses in the Constitution — commerce, coinage, war powers, privileges and immunities. You will notice what changed and what endured. Thus the Articles of Confederation pocket edition becomes a working reference for students, teachers, and citizens who want the record before the commentary.

Finally, a word of wisdom from the Founders’ own document: sovereignty begins local and is lent upward by consent. Study the Articles to see that principle in its starkest form. Do so with a purpose — the hope that, by reading what the Founders read and wrote, we might act with the same resolve against overreach, and for ordered liberty. (1777ed, 28pp, hb)