ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION AND PERPETUAL UNION BETWEEN THE STATES OF NEW-HAMPSHIRE, MASSACHUSETTS-BAY, RHODE-ISLAND AND PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS, CONNECTICUT, NEW- YORK, NEW-JERSEY, PENNSYLVANIA, DELAWARE, MARYLAND, VIRGINIA, NORTH-CAROLINA, SOUTH- CAROLINA AND GEORGIA by [Articles of Confederation]:

Lancaster, Printed; Boston, Reprinted by John Gill, printer to the General Assembly, 1777.. 16pp. Folio. Loose gatherings. Old fold lines, some minor loss at center along fold. Light foxing and toning. About very good. Untrimmed. In a half morocco and cloth box, spine gilt. One of the most basic documents in the history of the United States, the first official binding together of the states of the Union, and a State paper ranking in importance with the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Northwest Ordinance, in the process of creating the Federal Union. Congress appointed a committee to draft the Articles of Confederation even before the Declaration of Independence, on June 12, 1776. The drafters were dominated by John Dickinson of Pennsylvania, and the first drafts of the document are generally attributed to him. His first draft was published in secret, for the use of the delegates only, in July 1776, and survives in a unique copy at the Library of Congress. There were many objections to the document, and a revised draft, now surviving in three copies, was issued in August. That draft also met with opposition on many points, and no agreement was reached. The issues were debated off and on for over a year, during which period Congress was forced to flee Philadelphia and move to York, Pennsylvania. In October 1777 agreement was reached on most major points, and a committee of Richard Henry Lee, James Duane, and Richard Law was appointed to complete a new draft and propose any additional articles. The final document they produced was vastly different from the 1776 drafts, retaining little of the original language and altering many of the basic concepts of the Dickinson drafts. Consideration of the new text was completed on November 13, and a committee appointed to arrange publication reported an agreed-upon draft on November 15. Two hundred copies were printed, evidently on November 16, and Congress sent copies to the states on November 17, 1777. The first edition of the Articles is so rare as to be virtually unobtainable. Many states republished the Articles as soon as copies arrived, to distribute to the population and for the use of the legislatures in ratification. Before the end of 1777, editions appeared in Newbern, N.C., Williamsburg, Annapolis, New London, Providence, Exeter, N.H., and Boston. All of these reprint editions are rare, many scarcer than even the Lancaster original. We have done exhaustive work toward a census of the various editions. The great Americana collector, Thomas W. Streeter, owned a copy of this Boston edition. He called it "one of the great documents in our history." EVANS 15619. Merrill Jensen, THE ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION (Madison, 1940). STREETER SALE 787. CHURCH 1142. SABIN 2142. HOWES A345, "b."