The Confederation period is one of the most neglected aspects of United States History. And yet, it’s a very important period. Between 1781 and 1789, the Confederation Congress established by the Articles of Confederation had to deal with war, economic depression, infighting between the states, trouble in the west, foreign meddling, and domestic insurrection. It’s a critical period where no one knew whether the United States would survive as an independent nation.

George William Van Cleve, a researcher in law and history at the University of Seattle Law School and author of We Have Not A Government: The Articles of Confederation and the Road to the Constitution, takes us into the Confederation period so we can discover more about the Articles of Confederation, the government it established, and the problems that government confronted.

Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/179

*Correction: After production we noticed that in her second question to George, Liz noted the Articles of Confederation has a history that begins in 1787. Liz misspoke. The Second Continental Congress drafted the Articles of Confederation in 1777, ratified them in 1781, and they remained the active constitution of the United States until 1789, when the Constitution of 1787 went into effect on March 4, 1789.

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Complementary Episodes

• Episode 018: Danielle Allen, Our Declaration
• Episode 062: Carol Berkin, The Bill of Rights
• Episode 107: Mary Sarah Bilder, Madison’s Hand: Revising the Constitutional Convention
• Episode 119: Steven Pincus: The Heart of the Declaration
• Episode 141: Drafting the Declaration of Independence
• Episode 143: Michael Klarman, The Making of the United States Constitution
• Episode 155: Pauline Maier’s American Revolution

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