Lesson of the day

Articles of Confederation

Listen: You can hear the episode here (Apple podcasts) on YouTube, or on our website. While you listen, maybe take a walk! I would recommend playing the Blocks Game as it’s a blast, but that’s a hard thing to do while maintaining social distancing. If I had my way I’d suggest everyone play a game as America in Civ V and see how well you do without any trade routes between your cities whatsoever. But we’ll do that later.

Do: QUIZ TIME! You got all that? Take this quiz to see if you did!

Do: One State, One Vote

I just love reading about the Articles of Confederation. Mainly because they get a bit of a short shrift and are looked at primarily to see what we got wrong the first time. I like the phrase “a firm league of friendship,” and I adore the beautiful currency from the individual states. But how about this one-state, one-vote thing?? And only one chamber of congress? How would that even work today?

This map comes courtesy of the folks at governing.com, and it shows which party controls your state’s legislature. Nebraska is unicameral and therefore grey in this image, but they’re republican-controlled. Minnesota is split right now, Republicans control the Senate and Democrats control the House.

So if we imagine that each of these states gets ONE single vote when it comes to passing federal legislation, and there’s no second chamber of government to block anything going to the president’s desk, ask yourself the following questions:

Would this system of government pass more laws, or fewer laws?
How would your state benefit when it came to, say, apportioning funds for dealing with the economic setbacks due to COVID-19? Is your state gonna do ok?
If you happen to live in one of those Democratic-controlled states, what could you do to make this system work for you?

That’s all for today, if you happen to live in a state that was one of the original 13 colonies, look up some of your old Articles-era paper money, you’ll be delighted.