Go sometime to York, Pennsylvania. 

Chesapeake Bay is nearby and navigable. But in 1777 the Susquehanna river proved a tough barrier for the British to attack across from the east. Hence, the Continental Congress safely fled to York from Philadelphia. That made a small Pennsylvania town temporary headquarters of a 13-nation alliance called "The United States of America." To the newborn USA, York became what Brussels is to NATO, the seat of an alliance, not a national capital city. 

 Visit  the restored York County Colonial Court House. There delegates wrote Articles of Confederation. When those Articles took effect in 1781, they converted a wartime alliance of 13 independent states into a national confederation which lasted for nearly eight years. 

Recall pre-1777 steps toward American unity. Parliament's 1765 Stamp Act was meant to raise money in America toward defraying the expenses of defending lands won from the French in 1763. In angry reaction, delegates from nine colonies south of Canada assembled in New York City for the first inter-colonial congress ever called by Americans for Americans. On October 19, 1765, that Stamp Act Congress issued 14 declarations and asserted that no one might impose taxes on Americans without American consent. 

Parliament refused to receive the 14 declarations. But violence by America's Sons of Liberty ensured that not a farthing from stamp taxes went to England. In 1766 Parliament repealed the Stamp Act but also rejected American constitutional claims to pay taxes only as free gifts. 

The Boston Tea Party of December 1773 and Parliament's subsequent "Intolerable Acts" closed the port of Boston and wrapped Massachusetts in a British bear hug. Twelve colonies convoked the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia in September 1774. On October 20, Congress urged that governing committees be formed "in every county, city, and town"  both to resist Britain economically and to publish the names of non-resisters as "the enemies of American liberty." 

In 1775 a Second Continental Congress hastily convened in Philadelphia following the battles of Lexington and Concord.  Benjamin Franklin circulated draft "Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union." But most delegates were not ready for national unity,  hoping still for reconciliation with Britain. 

On January 9, 1776 there  burst upon the colonies Thomas Paine's pamphlet, "COMMON SENSE." This asserted, "Nothing but...a Continental form of Government can keep the peace of the Continent and preserve it inviolate from civil wars." Like Franklin, Paine proposed a permanent one-house central organization responsible for all national-level executive, legislative and judicial affairs. In April 1776 John Adams reacted, calling instead for a national two-chamber legislature which in turn would create an independent executive and judiciary with checks and balances. 

On May 10, 1776 Congress (still nothing more than the NATO of its day) advised all colonial governments "to get on with (the) task" of abolishing or rewriting the old British-approved colonial charters. 

At Philadelphia Virginia's Richard Henry Lee presented on June 7, 1776 a 
motion: "RESOLVED:...that a plan of confederation be prepared and transmitted to the respective Colonies for their consideration and 
approbation." In the subsequent rush, however, to declare independence and 
adjourn, James Madison pled in vain for a day's delay to permit drafting a 
text creating a national government. The delegates understood the points of Lee and Madison. But they seceded first and postponed constitutional unity until later. 

The July 4, 1776 Declaration of Independence was thus effected by thirteen 
independent nations. Later, at York, Congress completed its role in creating one nation.  On November 17, 1777 the alliance submitted to the 13 
independent North American nations its reworking of Franklin's original idea calling for a national unicameral ruling body combining legislative, executive and judicial powers. Congress apologized for delays. It was also 
defensive about contents of "The Articles of  Confederation and Perpetual 
Union" but said that this was the only form of government "which affords any tolerable prospect of general ratification." 

The former colonies remained independent nations  for another 3 1/2 years, until March 1, 1781. This was because seven states claimed land west of the mountains and indeed even to "the South Sea." In the original draft of Article IX appeared a proviso "that no state shall be deprived of territory for the benefit of the United States." Eventually,  New York in 1780 and Virginia in January 1781 dropped their sweeping land claims. This cession to the central government made possible the greatest piece of national legislation during eight years of Confederation: The Northwest Ordinance of 1787.That  legislation created new national territories to be guided toward statehood. In those lands Congress provided for schools and churches and forbade slavery. 

For a well written source on the history and documents of this period open William Miller,  READINGS IN AMERICAN VALUES (1964). 

For the epic sweep of the large ideas behind the Articles and other founding documents of our Republic, look into THE ROOTS OFAMERICAN ORDER by Russell Kirk (1974). Kirk and others underline that the 13 colonies of July 1776  rebelled individually, albeit also as members of aNATO-like league of independent nations. 

Less clear to such early observers as Tocqueville was what sort of unity our country achieved under our current constitution (written 1787, activated 1789), which the French observer called an "incomplete national government." 

The American Confederation barely breathed before patriots clamored for a 
much stronger central government. To achieve our current constitution some 
pamphleteers downplayed the evolving strength and unity of the two earlier experiments. John Adams wrote that the first U.S. alliance followed by 
confederation had used as models ancient Greek and Roman conceptions "in which the federal council was only a diplomatic body." In early leagues each state was equal and had a veto. It is true that the no longer independent states of the American Confederation enjoyed vastly more autonomy than they would after 1789. Even so, the Confederal Union was intended to last forever. Its authors asserted that our American Confederation had been created through the wise influence of 

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