A Troublesome Process: The Articles of Confederation, the Constitution and
the Creation of America’s Republican Ethic
When the Second Continental Congress adjourned in 1781, it was not to the universal acclaim of the men who thought they had worked out a practical and effective means of balancing centralized power with the autonomy of the young republic’s 13 members. The new nation’s revolutionary epoch had left its leaders profoundly mistrustful of any government endowed with undue power. One cannot help but wonder how many members of the second Congress left the proceedings suspecting they had only partially done the work of social engineering needed to knit together the ...
