The first draft of the Articles of Confederation, written by John Dickinson, was presented to Congress on July 12, 1776, but Congress did not send the proposed constitution to the states until November 1777. Three major constitutional issues divided Congress: state borders, including claims to lands west of the Appalachian Mountains, state representation in the new Congress, and whether tax levies on states should take slaves into account. Ultimately, Congress decided that each state would have one vote in Congress and that slaves would not affect state levies. By 1780, as the war continued, every state but Maryland had ratified the Articles; Maryland refused to ratify the constitution until all of the other states relinquished their western land claims to Congress. The success of Britain's Southern strategy, along with pressure from America's French allies, convinced Virginia to cede its claims north of the Ohio River, and Maryland finally ratified the Articles in January 1781. The new constitution took effect in March 1781 and the Congress of the Confederation technically replaced the Second Continental Congress as the national government, but in practice the structure and personnel of the new Congress was quite similar to that of the old Congress.