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?

First, consider the words above: “…it was too weak to coordinate national policy among states with different priorities.” Exactly! But that’s not why it failed. That was precisely why it was created. The regions and the states did have different priorities. Yes, Rhode Island could, on its own, veto legislation. When other states agreed to a tariff, Rhode Island could—as a lone New England state—say no. Of course, the other 12 states were welcome to pass their own tariffs and donate the revenues to the central government. Why did Rhode Island have to do what they did? That was no failure, it was success. In fact, the Constitution made demands on........

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