The Articles of Confederation government structure placed almost all authority in the thirteen states and gave the national level a single institution: a one-chamber Congress of state-appointed delegates, with no president, no national courts, and no power to tax or regulate trade. The framework took effect on March 1, 1781, and lasted until the current Constitution replaced it in 1789.1National Archives. Articles of Confederation Everything else about how the system worked follows from that starting choice.
A Single-Chamber Congress of State Delegates
The whole national government consisted of one body, the Congress of the Confederation. There was no senate, no house of representatives, no separate executive, and no separate judiciary. Each state legislature appointed a delegation of between two and seven members every year. Delegates served at the pleasure of their state governments and could be recalled and replaced at any time. No delegate could serve more than three years in any six-year span, which kept anyone from building a permanent career in the national legislature.2National Constitution Center. Articles of Confederation
Voting was equal by state. Regardless of population, wealth, or size, every state cast exactly one vote. Virginia, with roughly ten times the population of Delaware, carried the same weight on the congressional floor. Each state’s delegation had to reach internal agreement to cast that single vote, so a deadlocked delegation effectively abstained. The design made the states the fundamental political units and left the national government functioning closer to a diplomatic assembly than a sovereign legislature.1National Archives. Articles of Confederation
What Congress Was Allowed to Do
Article IX listed the actual powers of Congress. They clustered around collective defense and foreign relations: declaring war, negotiating treaties and alliances, maintaining armed forces, and managing diplomacy with foreign nations. Congress also handled relations with Native American tribes, but only where those dealings did not conflict with state legislative authority.1National Archives. Articles of Confederation
Beyond foreign affairs, Congress could coin money and set the value of coins produced by the national government or by individual states. It held the sole power to establish and regulate post offices connecting the states, including authority to charge postage to cover the system’s expenses.3National Constitution Center. The Constitution and the Postal System Congress could also set standards for weights and measures, regulate trade with Native American nations, and appoint military officers at the rank of general or above.
What Congress Was Not Allowed to Do
The missing powers shaped the structure as much as the granted ones. Congress could not levy taxes of any kind. Under Article VIII, national expenses were supposed to come from a common treasury supplied by the states, with each state’s share calculated based on the value of its land and improvements. Only state legislatures could actually collect those taxes. Congress could send requisitions asking states to pay, but had no way to force compliance.1National Archives. Articles of Confederation
Congress also had no authority to regulate commerce between the states. Each state set its own trade policies, imposed its own tariffs on goods from neighboring states, and printed its own currency. The national government could only watch. And Congress had no general enforcement power at all: it could pass measures, but it could not compel a governor to act or penalize a state for ignoring national directives. Laws from Congress worked more like recommendations than mandates.
States Held Every Power Not Explicitly Granted
Article II set the structural premise the whole system rested on: “Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every Power, Jurisdiction and right, which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled.”4The Founders’ Constitution. Articles of Confederation, art. 2 Every power not explicitly handed to Congress stayed with the states. There was no implied authority and no room for Congress to expand its reach by interpretation.
Because states held ultimate authority, they controlled taxation, regulated their own trade, maintained their own militias, and ran their own court systems. If a state disagreed with a national policy, it could simply refuse to cooperate.5Congress.gov. Constitution Annotated
No Executive Branch
The Articles created no executive branch in any meaningful sense. The position titled “President of the United States in Congress Assembled” was a presiding officer who ran congressional sessions. The president could serve no more than one year in any three-year period, held no veto power, could not enforce laws, and had no authority over the military. The role carried roughly the independent power of a committee chair.1National Archives. Articles of Confederation
Congress did create administrative departments to handle day-to-day management. In January 1781, it voted to establish a Department of Foreign Affairs, later appointing Robert R. Livingston as Secretary of Foreign Affairs. The secretary corresponded with American representatives abroad, relayed congressional instructions to diplomats, and was authorized to attend and participate in congressional sessions.6Office of the Historian. Articles of Confederation Congress also established departments for war and finance, staffed by individual superintendents rather than cabinet officers. These administrators answered to Congress collectively, not to any single executive.
For periods when Congress was not in session, Article X authorized a Committee of the States, composed of one delegate from each state. This committee could exercise whatever powers Congress specifically delegated to it, but could not act on any matter that required the consent of nine states. It met only once, in 1784, and dissolved after a few weeks when delegates left and it lost its quorum.1National Archives. Articles of Confederation
No General National Judiciary
The Articles created no permanent national court system. Legal disputes stayed in state courts, each operating under its own laws and procedures. Congress itself served as a last resort for settling boundary and jurisdictional conflicts between states, but it was not a standing court and had no judges.1National Archives. Articles of Confederation
One narrow exception existed. The Court of Appeals in Cases of Capture, established by the Continental Congress in January 1780, heard appeals in maritime prize cases involving captured enemy ships and cargo. State courts handled these cases initially, and the national court served as the appellate tribunal of last resort. Its jurisdiction was limited to wartime maritime captures and covered no other type of legal dispute. The court ceased to exist after the Constitution was ratified in 1789.
Without a broader national judiciary, there was no mechanism to ensure that laws meant the same thing in Massachusetts as they did in Georgia, no federal judges to strike down a state law that violated the Articles, and no forum to resolve conflicts between national directives and state legislation.
Supermajority Votes and Unanimous Amendments
The voting thresholds built into the Articles made collective action difficult and structural change nearly impossible. Any major decision, including declaring war, entering treaties, coining money, or borrowing funds, required approval from at least nine of the thirteen states. Routine matters needed a simple majority, but most consequential questions hit the nine-state threshold. A coalition of just five small states could block any significant action, regardless of population.1National Archives. Articles of Confederation
The amendment process was stricter still. Under Article XIII, changing any provision of the Articles required unanimous consent of all thirteen state legislatures. A single state could veto any reform, no matter how broadly supported. Rhode Island blocked a proposed national import duty in 1781 despite twelve states favoring it. The unanimity rule effectively locked the government into its original design, with no realistic path to self-correction.
How the Structure Ended
The Philadelphia Convention met in May 1787 and moved beyond patching the Articles. Delegates drafted an entirely new constitution that created a bicameral legislature, an independent executive with real enforcement authority, and a national judiciary. They also replaced the unanimity requirement with an amendment process needing approval from three-fourths of the states. To sidestep the Articles’ own unanimity rule for changes, Article VII of the new Constitution provided that ratification by conventions in just nine of the thirteen states would establish the new government among those ratifying states.7Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Article VII New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify on June 21, 1788, and the new government began operating in March 1789.