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Confederation, Articles of, in U.S. history, ratified in 1781 and superseded by the Constitution of the United States in 1789. The imperative need for unity among the new states created by the American Revolution and the necessity of defining the relative powers of the Continental Congress and the individual states led Congress to entrust the drafting of a federal constitution to a committee headed by John Dickinson. In the Articles of Confederation submitted by the committee to the Second Continental Congress on July 12, 1776, three points provoked much argument : the apportionment of taxes according to population, the granting of one vote to each state, and the right of the federal government to dispose of public lands in the West. After several revisions were made, however, this constitution, comprising a preamble and 13 articles, was adopted by Congress on Nov. 15, 1777. In their final form, the Articles retained the vote by states, but based the apportionment of taxes on the value of buildings and land, and specified that no state should be deprived of territory for the benefit of the United States.
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