“We Have Not a Government provides a focused explanation of the reasons the Articles of Confederation, the nation’s first federal constitution, went lurching toward collapse. . . .Van Cleve patiently examines the specific matters of public policy that vexed national politics in the mid-1780s. He draws sharp conclusions and generally takes decided stands on matters that historians still actively dispute. . . .What Van Cleve does demonstrate, persuasively, is that the genuine crisis of the Confederation required creating a “staggeringly powerful” national government through a “grand bargain” that went well beyond what any state might have asked for itself.”

Jack Rakove, Pulitzer Prize winner | Washington Post

"With careful attention and rich research, this book examines in depth each of the ways that the Confederation failed."

David O. Stewart | Washington Independent Review of Books

“[Van Cleve] describes in great detail the varied and complicated issues faced by the impotent, insolvent Congress. . . .This detailed and well-researched history and analysis will appeal to scholars and serious popular history buffs.”

Library Journal

“Instead of asking how the Constitution came to be adopted, Van Cleve asks why the previous government, the Articles of Confederation, failed—and why it failed not only in our own modern eyes, but in the eyes of its contemporaries. Pairing an enormous amount of scrupulous research with the unique perspective of a legal scholar, Van Cleve bridges the divide between scholarship and the curious reader. He writes with smooth, powerful, unobtrusive beauty.”

Daniel Walker Howe, author of | What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848, winner of the Pulitzer Prize

“Full of new insights and judicious conclusions, We Have Not a Government significantly improves our understanding of why the Articles of Confederation were replaced by the Constitution. Van Cleve has written the first systematic treatment of the ‘critical period’ in generations, carefully and exhaustively examining all the major elements of this important concept. It strongly resonates with contemporary concerns over the unfolding political crises of stalemate governments in both the United States and the European Union. It is an important achievement.”

Max M. Edling, author of | Revolution in Favor of Government:Origins of the US Constitution & the Making of the American State

“Van Cleve’s superb new study offers a compelling account of the crisis of sovereignty that transformed the new and loosely United States of America. Deeply researched and powerfully argued, We Have Not a Government charts the decline and fall of the Articles of Confederation, thus illuminating the extraordinary circumstances in which the federal Constitution was drafted. This is the clearest, most sharply focused, and persuasive account of the stalemate of government in the Confederation and the states that precipitated the ‘grand bargain’ at the Philadelphia Convention that saved the union. It will be recognized as a landmark in the literature.”

Peter S. Onuf | Thomas Jefferson Professor, Emeritus, University of Virginia

. . . a new and well-researched account of the policies and events that ultimately led to a loss of public confidence in the Articles of Confederation’s ability to govern a sectionally divided America. . . . [Van Cleve argues that] Political collapse, rather than imminent financial collapse, caused America’s leaders to lose faith in the Confederation’s ability to govern.

Tulsa Law Review