Printed Material

Southern Papers Suggesting Division of the Confederation

Date:	May 2, 1787
Publisher:	Hampshire Gazette

About this artifact

This article from May 1787 reports on a "hint" offered to the delegates scheduled to meet in Philadelphia to revise the current national government. The suggestion from "the southern papers" was to dissolve the Confederation of the United States formed in 1781 under the Articles of Confederation. The states would recombine into four separate republics according to geography and "climate, whose effect no positive law can surpass:" northern, middle, southern and western. The divisions reflected the regional affinities that had existed well before the Revolution. Proponents of this separation thought it would ensure the consensus and common interest believed essential to sustaining a republic.