...The exigencies of war postponed serious debate upon the draft Articles and stalled the Nationalists’ advancement in transforming the proposed “league of friendship” into a national government. The delay proved critical. When Congress finally began to reconsider the proposals in the winter of 1777, the circumstances of the debate were different. Any potential Nationalist victory collapsed as Thomas Burke, a newly arrived congressional delegate from North Carolina, took his seat. His contribution to the Revolution’s constitutional settlement was of singular importance.
Burke, a devout republican, feared centralized power and affirmed that the states were sovereign entities. Arriving to Congress as the determined champion of state sovereignty, he was ready to do battle against the Nationalists’ attempt to weaken the authority of the states at the hands of Congress. What he witnessed in the debates in Congress confirmed his worries. The first several weeks of his tenure, he reported, were consumed with debates “whose object on one side is to increase the Power of Congress, and on the other to restrain it.”[xi] Because of his republican and federal sensitivities, Burke did not hesitate to proclaim his ideas on state sovereignty. Soon after joining Congress he told his colleagues that they were “exceedingly mistaken if they deemed him a Man who would tamely suffer any invasion or encroachment on” state sovereignty, no matter the reason or cause. If Congress “proceeded to so arbitrary and Tyrannical” an exertion of “Power he would Consider it as no longer that which ought to be trusted with the Liberties of their Fellow Citizens.” At one point, he threatened that “if any such Question should be put” that risked the sovereignty of the states, North Carolina, “with determined resolution” would “withdraw from Congress.”[xii]
Burke believed he could account for the equivocation on the question of congressional power. “The attempts to [increase Congressional power] proceed from Ignorance of what such a Being ought to be, and from the Delusive Intoxication which power naturally imposes on the human Mind.”[xiv] Although reflecting his republican beliefs, Burke also feared that if those inebriated with power rose to prominence in the Confederation Congress as proposed in the Dickinson draft, tyranny would follow. Burke’s concern, therefore, became protecting the liberties of the people against these potential concentrations of power. To curtail any “delusive intoxications” meant chaining Congress to only those particulars granted in the proposed Articles of Confederation. Burke believed two methods could help achieve his goals. The first included insuring that “patriotism in America must always be particular to the particular states,” because “Patriotism to the whole will never be cherished or regarded but as it may be conducive or necessary to the other.” Given men’s “zealous love for that grandeur & preeminence, & a capacity to promote it that will be what must best distinguish & recommend any individual in it.”[xv] The people of the states must demand the protection of their liberties.
Localism, however, could not guarantee the permanent limitation of Congressional authority. Having “the power of Congress…accurately defined” so that “adequate checks… prevented any excess” was necessary. Burke had cause to believe that such an adequate description of these powers was vital to the preservation of both state power and individual liberties....