1. Warm-Up (11/07)
You are in charge of the Folks Middle School growth committee. How will you handle all the new students attending from the houses being built around the school?
What should the maximum number of students in a classroom be?
When that number is reached do you hire more teachers to make more classrooms?
When we fill up all the classrooms should we bring in portable classrooms?
What is the maximum number of students we can have at this school before we need to open another school?

2. Articles of Confederation
America’s first try at government

3. What is a confederation?
/kənˌfedəˈrāSH(ə)n/
noun
An organization that consists of a number of parties or groups united in an alliance or league.
At this time states consider themselves “united in friendship” for each other’s common defense. However each state retains its “sovereignty, freedom, and independence”

4. Central Gov’t: Strong or Weak?

5. No national army or navy

6. Each state has its own money

7. Congress can enter into treaties with other countries

8. Each state gets one vote

9. Congress can not pass taxes

10. Congress can organize and sell lands in the Northwest Territory

11. No national court

12. Each state has its own trading rules

13. 9 out of 13 states required to pass law

14. No national bank

15. All 13 states must agree to any change of the Articles.

16. Congress could make treaties Congress could declare war
Strengths
Weaknesses
Congress could make treaties
Congress could declare war
Congress could organize and sell land in the Northwest Territory
Can’t print money
Can’t tax
Can’t regulate trade
No national bank
No national army
Takes 9/13 states to pass a law
Takes all 13 to amend the Articles
Each state gets one vote

17. So…
Under the Articles of Confederation was our national government STRONG or weak?

18. Why make the national government weak?
Colonists were overcompensating for a tyrannical King. Americans did not want to create a strong federal (national) government that might also start abusing its powers.
tyr·an·ny
/ˈtirənē/
noun
A cruel and oppressive government

19. Northwest Ordinance (1787)

20. Northwest Ordinance (1787)
Provided a way for organized expansion into new areas
Set up requirements for territories to become states
First attempt to stop the spread of slavery into new states