Creating the United States
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Articles of Confederation Emerge from Congress in 1777
After undergoing more than a year of planning and compromise in the Continental Congress, the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union Between the States was finally ready to be sent to the states for ratification. Nearly four years would pass before all thirteen states had ratified the document—Maryland being the last to ratify on March 1, 1781—and it was put into action. The Articles provided for a one-house legislature, a weak executive, no national power of taxation, a lack of standard currency, and voting by state—flaws that would eventually lead to its failure.