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===Foreign policy===
{{Main|Confederation Period#Foreign affairs}}
The 1783 [[Treaty of Paris (1783)|Treaty of Paris]], which ended hostilities with Great Britain, languished in Congress for several months because too few delegates were present at any one time to constitute a [[quorum]] so that it could be ratified. Afterward, the problem only got worse as Congress had no power to enforce attendance. Rarely did more than half of the roughly sixty delegates attend a session of Congress at the time, causing difficulties in raising a [[quorum]]. The resulting paralysis embarrassed and frustrated many American nationalists, including George Washington. Many of the most prominent national leaders, such as Washington, [[John Adams]], [[John Hancock]], and [[Benjamin Franklin]], retired from public life, served as foreign delegates, or held office in state governments; and for the general public, local government and self-rule seemed quite satisfactory. This served to exacerbate Congress's impotence.{{sfn|Ferling|2003|pp=255–59}}

Inherent weaknesses in the confederation's frame of government also frustrated the ability of the government to conduct foreign policy. In 1786, [[Thomas Jefferson]], concerned over the failure of Congress to fund an American naval force to confront the [[Barbary pirates]], wrote in a [[Proposals for concerted operation among the powers at war with the Pyratical states of Barbary|diplomatic correspondence]] to [[James Monroe]] that, "It will be said there is no money in the treasury. There never will be money in the treasury till the Confederacy shows its teeth."<ref>{{Cite web |editor-last=Boyd |editor-first=Julian P. |title=Editorial Note: Jefferson's Proposed Concert of Powers against the Barbary States |url=https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-10-02-0424-0001 |access-date=April 21, 2018 |website=Founders Online |publisher=[[National Archives]] |location=Washington, D.C. |archive-date=April 21, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180421232327/https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-10-02-0424-0001 |url-status=live }} [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 10, June 22–December 31, 1786, ed. Julian P. Boyd. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1954, pp. 560–566]</ref>

Furthermore, the 1786 [[Jay–Gardoqui Treaty]] with [[Spain]] also showed weakness in foreign policy. In this treaty, which was never ratified, the United States was to give up rights to use the [[Mississippi River]] for 25 years, which would have economically strangled the settlers west of the [[Appalachian Mountains]]. Finally, due to the Confederation's military weakness, it could not compel the [[British army]] to leave frontier forts which were on American soil — forts which, in 1783, the British promised to leave, but which they delayed leaving pending U.S. implementation of other provisions such as ending action against [[Loyalist (American Revolution)|Loyalist]]s and allowing them to seek compensation. This incomplete British implementation of the Treaty of Paris would later be resolved by the implementation of [[Jay's Treaty]] in 1795 after the federal Constitution came into force.