We Have Not a Government: The Articles of Confederation and the Road to the Constitution

by George William Van Cleve

In 1783, as the Revolutionary War came to a close, Alexander Hamilton resigned in disgust from the Continental Congress after it refused to consider a fundamental reform of the Articles of Confederation. Just four years later, that same government collapsed, and Congress grudgingly agreed to support the 1787 Philadelphia Constitutional Convention, which altered the Articles beyond recognition. What occurred during this remarkably brief interval to cause the Confederation to lose public confidence and inspire Americans to replace it with a dramatically more flexible and powerful government? We Have Not a Government is the history of this contentious moment in American history.

In George William Van Cleve’s compelling book, we encounter a sharply divided America. The Confederation faced massive war debts with virtually no authority to compel its members to pay them. It experienced punishing trade restrictions and strong resistance to American territorial expansion from powerful European governments. Bitter sectional divisions that deadlocked the Continental Congress arose from exploding western settlement. And a deep, long-lasting recession led to sharp controversies and social unrest across the country amid roiling debates over greatly increased taxes, debt relief, and paper money. Van Cleve shows how these remarkable stresses transformed the Confederation into a stalemate government and eventually led previously conflicting states, sections, and interest groups to advocate for a union powerful enough to govern a continental empire.

Touching on the stories of a wide-ranging cast of characters—including John Adams, Patrick Henry, Daniel Shays, George Washington, and Thayendanegea—Van Cleve makes clear that it was the Confederation’s failures that created a political crisis and led to the 1787 Constitution. Clearly argued and superbly written, We Have Not a Government is a must-read history of this crucial period in our nation’s early life.

Genres: History, Politics, American History, Nonfiction, Law, Government

390 pages, Hardcover

First published October 24, 2017

About the author

George William Van Cleve has taught at the University of Virgina, Loyola University Law School, Catholic University of America Law School, American University Law School, and the Seattle University School of Law, where he currently a visiting professor. He earned his J.D., cum laude from Harvard Law School and a Ph.D. in history from the University of Virginia.

Reviews

[Julian Douglass · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic, if more academic view of the problems and solutions to the Articles of Confederation. A must read if you are looking at the Articles and their issues in a grander sense of the formations of the American Constitution and the political theories that go into it rather than a general history of the document and the foundation of current American Republic. I would also recommend Joseph J. Ellis’s The Quartet: Orchestrating the Second American Revolution, 1783-1789 if you want a less PhD level discussion of the document.

[Terence · Rating 3 out of 5]

We Have Not A Government is a brief but fascinating look at that period of U.S. history when the country operated under its first constitution, the Articles of Confederation, up to the Philadelphia Convention (1783-1787). Or didn’t operate. Van Cleve lays out the many ways the Confederation failed to work as a national government and, at the end, was so ineffectual only the most recalcitrant continued to resist calls to replace it.

This is a period of U.S. history often glossed over in our schools. We go from the excitement of Concord, Saratoga and Yorktown right to the machinations of the Convention and maybe – maybe – mention Shays Rebellion (1786). But those years between the end of the Revolution and Philadelphia created the conditions that forced our founders to write the Constitution.

Today, unfortunately, U.S. citizens tend to hold the Constitution as holy writ but Van Cleve makes it absolutely clear that no god blasted its articles onto a slab from atop a mountain nor did an angel appear in some founder’s dream and dictate it. It’s a flawed, complicated instrument. A compromise between advocates of a strong central government and those terrified that such an entity would lead inevitably to tyranny. Even in the states where it was ratified (11 of the 13), the margins of victory were slim.

Despite its flaws, the Constitution remains a remarkable work. Obviously, its makers were committed to protecting their interests but most were equally committed to the idea that a just, equitable (in their eyes) government was possible; one that could “form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”[*]

We Have Not A Government is a good overview of this little known period. It only skims the surface of the subject but there are near 100 pages of notes and bibliography for readers interested in deeper forays into topics like debt relief efforts, the Spanish treaty & westward expansion, and other issues that plagued the newborn state after the Revolution.

It’s not all that well written. The prose can be awkward, if not downright clunky, at times but it’s not unreadable by any stretch. I’d recommend this to the interested.

[*] I have never been able to recite the Preamble without singing it because I learned it from watching the School House Rock episode.

[Keith · Rating 3 out of 5]

During the War for Independence, the American states created a constitution called the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union. To call it a government might be an exaggeration. It was more a council of independent states that required near unanimity before anything could be done. Which, as you’d expect, resulted in little being done. And if, in the odd moment, it did try to do something, it had no authority or budget to do it.

We Have Not a Government outlines the history of the Confederation from the end of the war to the Philadelphia Convention that creation the current Constitution.

Despite the best efforts of the Confederation, George Washington managed to win the nation’s independence from England. In peace time, it somehow proved even less effective. Van Cleve outlines the many challenges facing the new nation from a long recession to trade issues to challenges from foreign nations to internal rebellions to inter-state conflict. The Confederation was unable to rise to any of the challenges.

The current constitution was created from the desperation of a nation slipping into regionalism and potentially anarchy. The failures of the Confederation largely informed the created the Constitution.

This is not a very well covered period. Many very good books cover the Revolutionary War and the making of the Constitution. Pauline Maier’s excellent Ratification takes a look at the process that got the Constitution ratified. But books that explain the period from the end of the Revolution to the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention are rare, so I was eager to read Van Cleve’s book.

Overall, it’s a good book. But it’s not quite what I hoped for. It is at times a very academic history, citing competing theories of other historians and at times getting into some dry economic data in order to prove a point. The first few chapters are about the economic challenges the nation faced, and frankly they are pretty tough to read.

The book eventually picks up momentum, and last half is very good. However, if you are looking for a popular history that tells the story through the personalities of key actors, this isn’t it. Washington and Madison come to life a bit, but everyone else is in the background. The opponents of the Constitution are here, but they don’t really live and breathe.

I was also disappointed that the book didn’t explain how the Confederation was created. That is a complete mystery to me. This book is relatively short (around 300 pages) and I don’t know why he couldn’t have spent 50 to 100 pages giving a brief history of the Confederation origins – how and why it was created. I would think that would explain the Confederation's many weaknesses.

As I noted, this is more of an academic book that tries to prove a point and correct some erroneous preconceptions. It’s not something you exactly read for pleasure (like Chernow or McCullough) to get swept up in the ideas and people of the time.

I enjoy history and I’ve read some dry stuff. For people like me, this is a very informative book. If you are looking for a sweeping history of the people, events and ideas preceding the Constitutional Convention told in a light and entertaining way, this is probably not the book you want. If you want to dig into the issues that led up to the creation of the Constitution this is very good.

[Riq Hoelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author reports that the impetus to the book is that in 1783 Hamilton thought the country needed a new constitution while Madison disagreed, thinking the current one would suffice. But by 1786 Madison, of course, was a driving force behind creating a new one. So what happened in the interim to change his mind?

In terms of its marketing and packaging, this book seems to be pitched to a general audience, but textually only to academics. It assumes that the readers knows many things, such as what Rhode Island's "country party" was, what "Regulators" were, the pros and cons of hard vs. paper currency and so on, for it does not explain them. It also assumes the reader knows a lot of the individuals involved, because even though there's a sort of dramatis personae at the front, plenty, such as Sedgwick, are omitted. But if it's meant for academics, why is there so much retreading of material that has appeared in so many books before? It seems like a plan designed to please nobody.

Like some other books, it also uses a technique of citing letters from one to three individuals to imply that their views on what was happening in the country represented everyone, that is, a trend. But that's not true. Those are just three letters. You cannot prove things on that basis.

Another objectionable use of evidence is citing different parts of one letter to make opposite points. At one point a letter of Jefferson to Madison is used to show he objected to Shays' Rebellion, but later on, a different passage in the same letter is used to suggest he did not. The book does not mention that it's the same letter by the way. You'll only find that out if you pursue the footnotes. (Of course part of the problem is using Jefferson at all. He can be self-contradictory that way.)

A third issue is that it cites a great deal of financial data, using two sources. Instead of choosing one to go with, it takes the average of the two. These two studies, one from 1961 (Ferguson), the other from 1895 (!, Bullock), used different data and conceptions. What kind of methodology allows just taking the average? The author really should have picked one (1961 I would hope!) and stuck with it.

A lot of this book is rather gloomy. Forget the glories of the Revolution and the famous documents. It's all about the Confederation period between Yorktown and the Constitutional convention. Not that everything was so bad during this time - the country was basically treading water, but not drowning. But this book reports only the negative developments and then does so repeatedly. Add on top of that all the boring financial data mentioned earlier and who really wants to read this? I at least found it quite slow going. That the text is often ponderous does not help.

Good features include that it does run down all the problems the Confederation faced pretty thoroughly. It's the first book to really describe the why Rhode Island was so reluctant to join the union - their deliberate money depreciation scheme designed to ease the lives of debtors.

[Magpie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mr. Van Cleve's book is an interesting exposition of the political and economic challenges that led to the underreported collapse of the USA's first constitution. The author takes the position that debt relief and paper money policies took an outsized role in the systemic undermining of federal authority, but he also does a great job explaining how the sectional interests of the nascent USA ultimately required a consolidated federal authority.

Chances are that if you're a person that the subject matter appeals to, you will enjoy this book. It is well written, excellently researched, and timely to the point of prescience. While the focus on economic policies certainly give the book a particular tilt and heaviness, it all leads masterfully to a strong and seemingly inevitable conclusion. Would recommend.

[Scott Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This work looks at the Articles of Confederations, attempting to separate myth from reality. The reality is that the Articles did work initially, and served their purposes, especially when the states looked to maintain their primacy. However, the overarching national objectives, especially when it came to settling war debts, the expansion of American territory and offering protection for that territory and dealing with larger insurrections, the Confederation was never going to be strong enough to manage those problems. Some in recent years have attempted to look at the model of the Articles of Confederation as what America should strive for as a government. Unfortunately, the lack of centralized control at the Federal level doomed it then, and it would most assuredly doom the national government now. Still, this is worth the read.

[Lauren Ketchum · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good overview of the economic and political factors leading up to the Philadelphia convention and leaders’ gradual realization of the need for not just reform of the Confederation government but an overhaul of the balance of power between the states and national authority. Van Cleve lays the groundwork for the issues the Founders were seeking to address during the Convention, namely (1) the challenge in collecting and enforcing taxation to pay the war debt and popular resistance due to inflationary pressures, and (2) western expansion and the sectional balance of power, coupled with the inability to defend national sovereignty against foreign aggression. The book contextualizes the problems faced in the mid-1780s, the Congressional stalemate that ensued, and the contemporary controversies that birthed one of the most significant political documents in human history.

[Rob1992 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reads a lot like a textbook and can feel a little repetitive at times, but overall this book accomplishes its goal: giving the reader a fundamental understanding of the failures of the Articles of Confederation.

Prior to reading this I had no idea how essential taxes and treaty ratification were to the forming of modern America. Reading this book makes me feel like I have a better understanding of modern American government, especially regarding taxes and the power of the government to enforce its own laws. The title is perfect for the book and the topic it covers, under the Confederation America truly did not have a government, and the failure of the Articles of Confederation led to the convention that created what America and the world now know as government in the modern era.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good and concise accounting of the failure of the Articles of Confederation. Shows how its effective collapse motivated nationalists to create an effective "consolidated" government bwith power OVER the states. The book walks through the key areas of the Confederacy's failures in the mid 1780s, addressing how states responded (or failed to) and how this contributed to the calling if the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 and the nationalists' agenda to overhaul American government. Van Cleve delves into the economic motivation of reformers but posits this was not about preserving wealth but correcting key flaws of the Confederation economic system

[Elie Harriett · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fills in many blanks in my knowledge

This is a great book that goes over that period between the end of the revolution and the beginning of the federal government. Why did we make this change? How bad was our confederacy? These were questions I always wondered about and now I know.

The book is dry but engaging. It is laid out in easy to follow sections. I have no complaints and highly recommend it.

[Heather G · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dry

Very true but dry and not quite what I was looking for. There wasn't much on how the Articles of Confederation were ratified.

[Edward Sullivan · Rating 4 out of 5]

An insightful chronicle of the events leading up to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and explanation of why the Articles of Confederation failed.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent detailed history of the period between 1783 and 1787. The author explains how and why the first Confederation failed and the reasons for the convention of 1787.

[Jonathan Cantor · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best book I have read on this timeperiod. Super interesting and readable. If you want to understand why the Articles of Confederation failed, this is it.

[Sam Seitz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent book that anyone with a passing interest in early American history should read. We Have Not a Government is not just valuable for students of American history, however, as it also contains more general lessons on political compromise and cooperation. Indeed, I originally purchased this book because of the lessons I thought it might present for policymakers in the E.U. The core thesis of Van Cleve’s work is that the Constitution was created largely out of desperation and due to a hefty amount of luck, not because of the benign magnanimity and genius of America’s founders and the interest groups they represented. The causes of the early Americans’ desperation are manifold – regional conflicts over trade, zero-sum debt politics, tensions with Natives and European powers due to westward expansion, etc. – and they are comprehensively traced and explained by Van Cleve. Throughout the book, in fact, I had the recurring feeling that the proto-United States was going to collapse even though I knew how the story ended. For me, the biggest takeaways were the importance of linking self-interest with collective interest and the contingency of early American history. Once one realizes how precarious things were for the early United States, it becomes at once both more difficult to hold on to the overly romanticized founding myths we are taught in school and much easier to see the value in preserving and improving what was created in 1787.

[Asterix · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a well-researched, fairly in-depth exploration of why America abandoned the Articles of Confederation and took the risk of framing the Constitution. Van Cleve does not initiate a paradigm shift in our understanding of the reasons for dumping the Articles--it is mostly consistent with the popular understanding that the Articles' federal government was too weak to respond to the crises America faced, which convinced people something had to change. However, it does rebut the view among some historians that the Constitution was a reactionary response by wealthy elites to consolidate power, and that the Articles would have been more than capable of responding to the problems America faced. This seems like a mostly inside-baseball dispute--that view is a minority among historians post-Bernard Bailyn, and as far as I can tell basically unheard of among laymen--but it may be worth the scholar's time to hear Van Cleve's arguments.

Van Cleve also argues, convincingly, that the AP US History notion that Shay's Rebellion was particularly decisive in shifting support away from the Articles is wrong. Instead, Shay's Rebellion was one incident among many, and was not all that important in many states.

This is certainly a good read for someone looking to understand the period leading up to the Constitutional Convention. But it's hardly cutting-edge historiography.