Congress Submits Articles of Confederation for State Approval (1777)
On November 17, 1777, the United States Congress submitted the Articles of Confederation to the various states for purposes of ratification. The last state to approve the Articles of Confederation was Maryland, which took place almost four years later, on March 1, 1781.
The Articles of Confederation governed our young nation until the United States Constitution was put into operation in 1789. This was a significant piece of the era known as the American Revolution. It was a transformative period of time in which the American people went from living under a sovereign king, to living as sovereign states under the Confederation, to finally becoming sovereign people under the Constitution.
The Articles of Confederation bolstered the predominance of the states themselves. They reiterated how states retained their sovereignty and freedom. The United States Constitution, on the other hand, focused more on the people of the United States.
After the Articles of Confederation were ratified, the American people went back to the drawing board and drafted the U.S. Constitution, focusing more on a government of people, as opposed to a government of independent, sovereign states.