Continental Congress - Confederation Congress

Confederation Congress

The newly-founded country of the United States next had to create a new government to replace the British Parliament that it was in rebellion against. After much debate, the Americans adopted the Articles of Confederation, a declaration that established a national government which was made up of a one-house legislature known as the Confederation Congress. Its ratification gave the Congress a new name: the Congress of the Confederation, which met from 1781 to 1789. The Confederation Congress helped guide the United States through the final stages of the Revolutionary War, but during peacetime, the Continental Congress steeply declined in importance.

During peacetime, there were two important, long-lasting acts of the Confederation Congress:

1. The passage of the Northwest Ordinance in 1787. This ordinance accepted the abolishment of all claims to the land west of Pennsylvania and north of the Ohio River by the states of Pennsylvania, Virginia, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts, and the ordinance established Federal control over all of this land in the Northwest Territory—with the goal that several new states should be created there. In the course of time, this land was divided among Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota.
2. After years of frustration, an agreement was reached in 1787 to organize a Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia with the mission of writing and proposing a number of amendments to the Articles of Confederation in order to improve the form of government. In reality, the delegates to this Constitutional Convention soon decided that they needed to start over with a blank slate to write a new Constitution of the United States to completely replace the Articles of Confederation. Furthermore, the delegates agreed that the new Federal Government would come into effect upon the ratification of just nine of the States, rather than requiring unanimous consent as the Articles of Confederation did. Hence, the Confederation Congress peacefully planted the seeds of its own demise and replacement.

Under the Articles of Confederation, the Confederation Congress had little power to compel the individual states to comply with any of its decisions. More and more prospective delegates elected to the Confederation Congress declined to serve in it. The leading men in each State preferred to serve in the state governments, and thus the Continental Congress had frequent difficulties in establishing a quorum. When the Articles of Confederation were superseded by the Constitution of the United States, the Confederation Congress was superseded by the United States Congress.

The Confederation Congress finally set up a suitable administrative structure for the Federal government. It put into operation a departmental system, with ministers of finance, of war, and of foreign affairs. Robert Morris was selected as the new Superintendent of Finance, and then Morris used some ingenuity and initiative—along with a loan from the French Government—to deal with his empty treasury and also runaway inflation, for a number of years, in the supply of paper money.

As the ambassador to France, Benjamin Franklin not only secured the "bridge loan" for the national budget, but also he persuaded France to send an army of about 6,000 soldiers across the Atlantic Ocean to America—and also the dispatch of large squadron of French warships under Comte de Grasse to the coasts of Virginia and North Carolina. These French warships proved to be decisive at the Battle of Yorktown along the coast of Virginia by preventing Lord Cornwallis's British troops from receiving supplies, reinforcements, or evacuation via the James River and Hampton Roads, Virginia.

Robert Morris, the Minister of Finance, persuaded Congress set up the Bank of North America, in 1782. This bank was privately chartered, but it was funded in part by the loan from France. The Bank of North America played a major role in financing the war against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

The combined armies of George Washington and Nathanael Greene, with the help of the French Army and Navy, defeated the British in the Battle of Yorktown during October 1781. Lord Cornwallis was forced to sue for peace and to surrender his entire army to General Washington. During 1783, the Americans secured the official recognition of the independence of the United States from the United Kingdom via negotiations with British diplomats in Paris, France. These negotiations culminated with the signing of the Treaty of Paris of 1783, and this treaty was soon ratified by the British Parliament.