Monday, November 15 · 2010

The Articles of Confederation

Statehood of North Dakota Confirmation of Gerald Ford as Vice President

Preamble

Everybody hated this thing. While observing that it was “too weak” is an oversimplification, the variety of reasons why people were so miserable in the 1780s have everything to do with this document (until 55 of them got fed-up enough to scrap it). John Adams hated that he couldn’t get a commerce treaty under it. George Mason hated that it didn’t protect civil liberties. James Madison hated that it was too lenient on debtors, while Adonijah Mathews (a bartender) and Daniel Shays (a farmer) led separate rebellions claiming it was too harsh on debtors. Cows are contrarians anyway, so they just hated it on principle.

Here in Time

November 15 1777

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Source: Papers of the Continental Congress, 1774-1789

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About

This is a place for me (hi, incidentally; I'm Jon) to share some bite-sized stories of American history with you. Our National Archives, here in Washington, DC, publishes a handy, educational RSS feed called "Today's Document." From those Documents, you'll see me make drawings here. Some of them have cows. There's really no better source of creative inspiration — or sense of civic place — than our own American story. So let's jump in.

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