<Li> <P> Article XIII, ¶ 2 through signatures </P> </Li> <P> Article XIII, ¶ 2 through signatures </P> <P> On January 21, 1786, the Virginia Legislature, following James Madison's recommendation, invited all the states to send delegates to Annapolis, Maryland to discuss ways to reduce interstate conflict . At what came to be known as the Annapolis Convention, the few state delegates in attendance endorsed a motion that called for all states to meet in Philadelphia in May 1787 to discuss ways to improve the Articles of Confederation in a "Grand Convention ." Although the states' representatives to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia were only authorized to amend the Articles, the representatives held secret, closed - door sessions and wrote a new constitution . The new Constitution gave much more power to the central government, but characterization of the result is disputed . The general goal of the authors was to get close to a republic as defined by the philosophers of the Age of Enlightenment, while trying to address the many difficulties of the interstate relationships . Historian Forrest McDonald, using the ideas of James Madison from Federalist 39, describes the change this way: </P> <P> The constitutional reallocation of powers created a new form of government, unprecedented under the sun . Every previous national authority either had been centralized or else had been a confederation of sovereign states . The new American system was neither one nor the other; it was a mixture of both . </P>

What group had the most power under the articles of confederation