This PowerPoint will go over the formation of the Articles of Confederation, why they were necessary, and what the problems were with them.

1. FirstGovernment

2. On Purpose In the days after the Declaration of Independence, the Second Continental Congress worked to come up with a government to run the country during and after the Revolution.

3. On Purpose What they came up with was called the Articles of Confederation, which officially went into effect in 1781, and created a purposefully weak central government.

4. On Purpose States could send as many representatives as they wanted to the Congress under the Articles, but each state only had one vote.

5. On Purpose Passage of bills requesting any money from the states had to be passed by 9 states out of 13 rather than a simple majority of 7.

6. On Purpose The states did not have to send money to the government, despite those requests.

7. On Purpose The representatives saw their states as more important than the central government, and, in fact, many people used the plural verb “are” when referring to the country, rather than the singular verb “is”.

8. On Purpose Between 1781 (the end of the war) and 1786, there were a number of issues that arose that began to show the new nation’s leaders just how ineffective the Articles of Confederation were and how a new system of government needed to be developed.