Forming the New Nation (1767)

Though the USA had been recognized as an independent nation, in 1783 most Americans felt more loyalty to their own state than to the new United States.

Each individual American state had its own government and behaved like an independent country. It made its own laws and decisions about how to run its affairs. The first big problem that faced the new United States was how to join these quarrelsome little countries into one united nation.

In 1781, during the War of Independence, the states had agreed to work together. This agreement was called the Articles of Confederation.

When the War of Independence was over, individual states began to behave more and more like independent nations. States began fighting one another to decide the ownership of particular pieces of frontier land.

The weakness of its government made it difficult for the new United States to win the respect or the help of foreign nations. The British felt that the American government was so weak that it was not worth dealing with. France refused to recognize Congress as a real government.

In February 1787, Congress asked each state to send delegates to a "convention" in Philadelphia to talk about changes in the Articles of Confederation. The meeting became known as the Constitutional Convention. It began in May 1787, and George Washington was chosen to lead their discussions.

The delegates to the Constitutional Convention disagreed about the changes that were needed. But they wanted a stronger central government and believed that a stronger central government would protect their property and business interests.

The delegates worked out a completely new system of government for the USA. They set out the plan for this government in a document called the Constitution of the United States which gave the United States a "federal" system of government. It made the federal government stronger than before. It gave it the power to collect taxes, to organize armed forces, to make treaties with foreign countries, to control trade of all kinds and made arrangements for the election of a national leader called the President.

***