Incidentally this practice caused confusion in later years, because each possessor of such a document would claim that he had the original.

Whatever may have been the procedure in this particular case, it is fairly evident that Dickinson's committee took Franklin's plan of 1775 as the starting point of its work, and after revision submitted it to Congress as their report; for some of the most important features of the Articles of Confederation are to be found, sometimes word for word, in Franklin's draft.
This explanation of the origin of the Articles of Confederation is helpful and perhaps essential in understanding the form of government established, because that government in its main features had been devised for an entirely different condition of affairs, when a strong, centralized government would not have been accepted even if it had been wanted.

It provided for a "league of friendship," with the primary purpose of considering preparation for action rather than of taking the initiative.

Furthermore, the final stages of drafting the Articles of Confederation had occurred at the outbreak of the war, when the people of the various States were showing a disposition to follow readily suggestions that came from those whom they could trust and when they seemed to be willing to submit without compulsion to orders from the same source.

These circumstances, quite as much as the inexperience of Congress and the jealousy of the States, account for the inefficient form of government which was devised; and inefficient the Confederation certainly was.