Did the Articles of Confederation provide an effective national constitution?
YES:

No doubt the Articles of Confederation created a "weak" central government, if the standard of measurement is the national government created by the Constitution of 1787. It created a confederation rather than a national government....In contrast to its predecessors, the Confederation government exercised the powers granted to it with a considerable vigor--securing independence, establishing the institutional framework of government, and organizing the Northwest territories. The responses of states that ratified the Articles of Confederation between 1777 and 1781 constitute a second indication of the strength of the Confederation. Virtually every state expressed some degree of displeasure with the Articles as they were presented to the state legislatures. Much of that dissatisfaction related to the demand of the "landless" states for a share of the common lands of the king. Other states disliked the apportionment of expenses among the states on the basis of the white population only. Seven states, even as they ratified the Articles, expressed a concern that in particular ways the document created too powerful a central government. Individual state legislatures called for a diminution of the central government's power to maintain a peacetime army and to pass legislation with the votes of only nine states. Some states also wanted to impose greater controls on the post office, while others wanted to have the rights to conduct foreign affairs and to allow state, rather than federal, courts the power to try pirates and settle disputes over land claims. In the context of eighteenth-century America, the problem is not that the Articles lacked adequate powers but that they possessed too many powers.

...The nation could have continued to operate under the Articles. Morton Borden and Otis L. Graham Jr. ...conclude that the short-term results of the rejection of the Articles would not have been catastrophic. "We can speculate with assurance that there would have been no invasions, no revolutions, and no wars between the states--for none of those threatened. Nor would there have been an economic breakdown, social chaos, or mob rule--for the state governments were ruling effectively." There would probably have been another constitutional convention, as some Antifederalists proposed while opposing the Constitution. That convention would, Borden and Graham suggest, have done what the first meeting failed to do: amend the Articles of Confederation. Such a convention would almost certainly have granted to the central government, as was urged in 1785, the power to regulate trade and collect an impost. A sure source of revenue, in turn, would have allowed the central government to begin to reduce the Revolutionary War debt and secure the loyalty of its citizens.

Had the Confederation survived, it also seems likely that the powers of the federal government would have expanded. The leadership in government would, however, have been focused not in the cabinet (Alexander Hamilton as secretary of treasury and Thomas Jefferson as secretary of state) but in Congress, where the locus of political authority existed under the Articles of Confederation....Twenty-first-century criticisms of the Articles would have made no sense to the Framers. Of course, Congress adjourned upon occasion for lack of a quorum. Yes, states sometimes did not send delegates. When Congress therefore did not act, it was not a sign of weakness or debility; it was a sign the system was working as its Framers had intended....The Articles were neither ineffective in their time nor inappropriate to their age.

-- Steven R. Boyd, University of Texas at San Antonio

NO:

In the mid 1780s New Jersey leaders desperately needed to improve their state's fledgling economy. Not only was the state mired in a depression that had struck all of post-Revolutionary War America, but New Jersey's economy had long been weak because of its commercial dependence on nearby New York City and Philadelphia. State leaders, therefore, sought to use Great Britain's recent Order in Council to invigorate their commerce, but at the expense of their neighbors. The Order laid crippling trade restrictions upon the now-independent United States. It cut off American access to lucrative markets in the West Indies and prohibited U.S. merchant ships from doing business in British home ports. Pennsylvania and New York retaliated with steep tariffs. New Jersey officials, however, refused to discriminate, hoping that goods from the old mother country would now flow through their own ports. New York retaliated against New Jersey and imposed a tax upon foreign products entering its borders through another state. This measure led New Jersey to levy a £30-per-month fee upon New York for use of a lighthouse the state maintained on Sandy Hook.

...Time and again, this system of national government failed to meet the economic and political challenges of nationhood. The United States unlikely could have survived intact under its provisions....The strains engendered by the long war against Great Britain further undermined this already flimsy system. Rather than creating stronger unity, the conflict exacerbated existing divisions. As historian John Murrin has pointed out in "Roof Without Walls: The Dilemma of American National Identity" (1987), "Americans discovered during the Revolutionary War that they did not really like each other very much." Therefore, with leaders highly protective of their states' prerogatives and possessing little allegiance to a national government, many insisted that the United States remain nothing more than "a firm league of friendship."

...By the mid 1780s, several economic and diplomatic crises came to a head. The problems originated in the conclusion of the Revolutionary War. American commerce, for example, slowed considerably after the conflict as military contracts evaporated and spending declined. Import trade with the former mother country, moreover, resumed with a vengeance because of a pent-up demand for British manufactures. American exports, however, did not advance at nearly so robust a pace. The result was a significant outflow of specie coupled with deflation. The economic crisis hurt Americans in several ways. Falling prices made debts (both public and private) more burdensome. Debtors throughout the country demanded that state governments halt collections and foreclosures until the economic crisis had passed. The economic downturn also led assemblies to issue paper currency to relieve money shortages. Rhode Island went the furthest of any state by issuing a fresh batch of currency notes and also by requiring creditors to accept the bills at face value and levying a £100 fine on those who refused to accept the paper. The result was, as Madison noted, a "convulsion," with merchants packing up and fleeing the state rather than doing business under such conditions....The slump raised significant doubts about the adequacy of the Articles. Because it could not regulate commerce, Congress had few tools with which to address the crisis. It controlled neither the national money supply nor commercial relations among the various states. Congressional leaders implemented some measures to improve the economy, but their efforts foundered. Near the conclusion of the war, for example, Superintendent of Finance Robert Morris convinced Congress to establish the Bank of North America. Chartered by the government to help finance the conflict as well as bring the states under a uniform "money connexion," Morris believed the bank would stabilize the national economy. Although manifestly needed, the charter of the bank expired in 1784 solely because Rhode Island refused to support a needed national impost to fund the institution.

...Created at a time when American leaders were loyal above all to their states, this system of national government had encouraged regional self-interest, factionalism, and localism. The Articles also failed to provide leaders with the political means to handle in a systematic and united fashion the many problems unleashed by the Revolution. Indeed, the events of the 1780s demonstrate that a stronger national system was not only desirable but also was absolutely crucial for the long-term survival of the United States.

-- Phillip Hamilton, Christopher Newport University

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SLAVES AS % TOTAL POPULATION
SC-43
VA-39
GA-35.5
MD-32
NC-25.5
KY-16.9
DEL-15
NY-6
NJ-6
RI-1.4
CONN-1.1
PA-0.9
NH-0.11
VT, MASS, ME-0