Foundations of American unity | Opinion

Oct. 20 this year marks 250 years of American union. On this day in 1774, the First Continental Congress published the Articles of Association, declaring a boycott of British goods to protest the so-called Intolerable Acts. It had none of the rhetorical flourish or philosophical significance of the Declaration of Independence that would follow two years later. It was, however, the first flickering indicator that the colonies would not remain a mere extension of European empire but were destined to form a new American republic.
Few at the time imagined that the fledgling American union would become the basis for a constitutional republic with a novel federal system. Visionaries on both sides of the Atlantic did conceive of North America as in some sense the future of Western civilization, but not as a new nation.
In the 1750s, Benjamin Franklin published a pamphlet urging the extension of agricultural settlement across the American continent and speculating that our population would quickly outstrip Europe’s. When 20-year-old John Adams read it, he mused, “Soon after the Reformation a few people came over into this new world for Concience (sic) sake. Perhaps this … trivial incident, may transfer the great seat of Empire into America. It looks likely to me.”
Even the British press jumped in with speculation that the center of gravity was shifting to the American coast and London was bound to become a provincial town.
The Articles of Association became the moment that an American union began to displace European empires in North America rather than extending them. And despite its significance, the first formation of a federal union in 1774 barely registers in American civic memory. If you happen to send a friend a text message to commemorate the occasion, spellcheck won’t even bother to capitalize “articles of association.”
That was not always the case. Before the ink was even dry on the Constitution in 1787, Americans were already debating the nature of the Union. And the Articles of Association seemed always to bubble to the surface as a founding moment.
In the 1830s South Carolina, objecting to excessive federal taxes, declared the national tariff unconstitutional. This precipitated the so-called nullification crisis. South Carolina took the extraordinary step, not only of declaring the tariff unconstitutional, but making it a crime to pay the federal tax in the state or to attempt to collect it as an officer of the federal government.
The rationale for this extraordinary state power of nullification and interposition was grounded on what is called the state-compact theory of the Union. Nullifiers like John C. Calhoun reasoned that the Union is analogous to a league of sovereign states, and that the Constitution is therefore analogous to a treaty among sovereign states. The parties therefore can judge infractions of the treaty and withdraw from it — that is, secede from the Union — when they deem it their interest.
In a surprisingly forceful response, President Andrew Jackson, himself a champion of states’ rights and limited federal power, published a proclamation on nullification. He insisted that the American union was not a league of sovereign states, but a federal union entered into by “We the People” of the United States, acting as one body. He further insisted that the Union had not originated with the Constitution, but that the Constitution was a recognition of a union that had existed even before the Declaration of Independence, when “we were known in our aggregate character as the United Colonies of America.”
Thirty years after Jackson faced down nullification, a newly elected Abraham Lincoln would reiterate this account of the Founding in response to Southern secession. “The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774.”
From the moment Americans offered resistance to British rule, they had done so unitedly, not separately.
Jackson’s and Lincoln’s reliance on the Articles of Association reminds us of this central fact in the founding of our country: American union was indispensable to American independence. There was no credible possibility that the American colonies could successfully claim their independence separately. The success of the new American nation winning its independence from Great Britain was entirely dependent on the strength of the American union.
The centrality of union is important to remember as we prepare to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 2026. That document announced a view of human nature and of political justice that is foundational to our liberties and to subsequent declarations of human liberty and equality that people around the world have adopted since 1776. But it is doubtful that the words of the Declaration would be so famous — or would perhaps be known at all beyond a few enterprising historians — if America had not won its independence by force of arms.
The Second Continental Congress, when it decided to draft a declaration of independence in June and July 1776, recognized the contingency of independence on union and the force of arms. The same day that the Congress appointed a committee to draft a declaration, they also appointed committees to draft articles of confederation and plans for alliances with foreign nations.
If the American states were to take their place among the nations of earth as the Declaration says, they would have to possess not just the right, but the power to do so. The two things essential to successfully wielding that power were recognition from foreign nations of American sovereignty and success on the battlefield. Neither one of those conditions for independence could be secured without a strong union.
It is still the case that American prosperity and liberty cannot be successfully sustained against its enemies, foreign and domestic, without a strong union. So as we prepare to celebrate the 250th anniversary of American independence, let us remember also to mark the formal beginnings of the Union in those landmark Articles of Association.
Matthew Brogdon is the Larry H. and Gail Miller Family Foundation Senior Director of the Center for Constitutional Studies and associate professor of political science at Utah Valley University. He teaches and writes widely on the American constitutional tradition, federalism and separation of powers.