Did the Articles of Confederation Fail? Probably Not

Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Larsen Plyler

“It is taken, in many cases, to be fact that the reason the Constitutional Convention was called and that the Constitution was ratified was because of the failure of the Articles of Confederation system. The folks at Heritage have made their position clear: ‘The first plan the Framers tried after declaring independence was called the Articles of Confederation. The government that the Articles created failed because it was too weak to coordinate national policy among states with different priorities.’ Now, this is not particularly a criticism of the Constitution, though I believe there is room for that. But, I simply want to raise questions: What if the Articles were not failing? What if they were doing exactly what they were intended to do? What if the Articles were successful, but success was not in the agenda of powerful people?” (01/09/26)

https://mises.org/mises-wire/did-articles-confederation-fail-probably-not