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The Articles of Confederation, adopted by the Continental Congress on November 15, 1777, became operative on March 1, 1781 when the last of the 13 states signed on to the document. The Articles of Confederation were the predecessor to the U.S. constitution. The Articles of Confederation established an adequate but flawed system of government for many reasons. The Articles of Confederation had many critical flaws. One defect was that measures passed by Congress had to be approved by 9 of the 13 states. Also, the central government was severely limited in its powers and the articles were virtually impossible to amend, so problems could almost never be corrected. The Articles of Confederation's greatest weakness, however, was that it had no direct origin in the people themselves; but, knew only state sovereignty. However, the Articles of Confederation did provide some impor