In the origin story of the United States, pre-Constitution but post-Declaration, when the national government was still formless and empty, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, our 13 colonies-turned-states said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. The Second Continental Congress drafted the Articles of Confederation and saw that it was good.
Buuuuut they were wrong. It was not good.
We know this because despite the document’s early Edenic glow, powered of course by the sort of measureless confidence that can only come from revolutionary triumph, the thing was entirely scrapped after only eight years. Which means that on the We Botched It scale for political documents, the Articles have to rate quite high. Just for comparison’s sake, the Constitution has been in play for nearly 85,000 days—the Articles couldn’t get to 3,000.
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