AOC

• Ratification


  1 March 1781 - States retained "sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction and right"
• Congress' Powers:


  Foreign relations - able to make treaties and alliances.

  Maintain the army and navy

  Establish coin money

  Establish postal service

  Establish Admiralty courts (presiding over maritime law)

  Serve as a last resort on interstate disputes
• Issues with AOC


  Each state had only 1 vote regardless of size or population

  Congress couldn't levy taxes

  Congress couldn't regulate foreign and interstate commerce

  No executive branch to enforce any acts passed by congress

  No national courts system or judicial branch

  Amendments required a unanimous vote

  Laws required 9/13 states to agree

  States could enforce taxes on other states' goods
• Foreign affairs


  Some states began to make separate agreements with foreign governments. France sent 13 separate delegates.
• 1786 Shays' Rebellion


  Rebellion in Western Massachusetts. Daniel Shays and 700 others stopped the Supreme Court of Massachusetts from sitting. Congress were unable to deal with this as they didn't have a standing army. Massachusetts elites hired General Benjamin Lincoln to quash the rebellion
• 1787 Philadelphia Convention


  Initially called to merely amend the AOC, it ended up replacing the AOC with the Constitution
• Land Ordinance

  1785 - Divided the Northwest territories into townships, each set at 6 miles, subdivided into 36 lots of 640 acres each, with each lot selling at a minimum of $640
• Northwest Ordinance


  July 1787 - Established formal procedures for territories to become states and join the union. This set out provisions for 3-5 states to join the Union in the area north of the Ohio river. It included a Bill of Rights that guaranteed freedom of religion, the right to trial by jury, public education and a ban on slavery in the Northwest