Articles of confederation were proposed in 1777, more than a year after the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, for ratification by the thirteen sovereign States. These articles required the unanimous ratification of all of the States, and as Maryland withheld her consent to this, until the 1st of March, 1781, they did not go into effect until that time. In the meanwhile the Congress had continued to exercise its permissive powers in the prosecution of the war, but it had no means of enforcing its edicts except in the voluntary compliance of the several States. The first three articles were as follows: Article I. The style of this confederacy shall be "The United States of America." Art. II. "Each State retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every power, jurisdiction and right, which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled." Art. III. "The several States hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other for their common defence, the security of their liabilities and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other against all force opposed to, or attacks made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade or any other pretence whatever." The other articles of confederation conferred upon Congress very little more power than it had been exercising. All important measures required the concurrence of nine States, the votes being given by the delegates from each State as a unit, and not in their individual capacity. The right of the States to recall their delegates and to appoint others was expressly reserved, so that five States acting together, could at any time block the government, and the latter had no means of enforcing its decrees when made, but had to rely upon the voluntary compliance of the States as before. It will thus be seen that the government organized under the articles of confederation remained still a mere confederacy of several independent States. When peace was finally made with Great Britain, that power recognized the sovereignty and independence of the several States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia by name, and not the sovereignty and independence of the United States. After the treaty of peace, under the navigation laws of Great Britain, American vessels trading with that country, were restricted to the importation of products of the several States to which they belonged, which put those States upon the footing of so many separate nations. The action of the several States upon the subject of slavery and the slave trade during the war and afterwards to the time of the adoption of the Constitution of the United States was as follows: