Articles Of Confederation Dbq

More than 400 years ago, a group of explorers who chased economic success and religious freedom came to America to start their life as the Crown’s North American Colony of the Great Britain. These people began their life without supports from their mother nation. They survived under the harsh environment which includes starving, conflicts with the Native American, etc. to build their peaceful life in this new continent. However, this peaceful life was broken by their mother nation. In order to pay a great deal of debt after the Seven Years’ War which was between the Great Britain and French, the British government imposed heavy taxes to the Crown which includes the Stamp Act, Sugar Act and Tea Act since 1764. These movements severely offended

Together with other unfair treatments from the British government, the American colonists declared the Revolution War and announced their independence through the Declaration of the Independent. After declaring their independence, this new nation needed a working government system to maintain the functionality of the union. After experiencing the control of the British government, the new nation wanted to limit the power of the central government and remain most of the power under the States’ hand. Under this circumstance, the Article of Confederation was born. Although the Articles of Confederation was the first step to make the United States a better nation, it failed to provide a strong national government to regulate the economy and international affairs. Eventually, the Articles of Confederation was reform to today’s the Constitution.

Since those heavy taxes imposed by the British government created the revolutionary turmoil, the new nation decided to limit the overall control power of the central government, especially

Comparing to the economic aspect, the Congress did have some control over the diplomacy aspect which includes “the power to declare war and make peace, to make treaties and alliances … [and] appoint the senior officers of the U.S army.” (Ginsberg, et. al. 2014:35) These powers, basically, were the extended version of previous Continental Congress’s power. Although it granted the central government right to appoint senior officers to the United States’ army which was composited by states militias, the appointed senior officers, in fact, did not have a national basis army to serve. Similar to the national army force, even though the Articles of Confederation did grant the Congress to negotiate diplomacy policies with foreign countries, it did not grant the central government enough power to force those states to follow national policies. For example, when John Adams of Massachusetts represented the United States to negotiate new treaties with the British government. The British government questioned the “United States under the Articles of Confederation was unable to enforce existing treaties” and refused to negotiate with him by saying that “would negotiate with each of the 13 states separately.” (Ginsberg, et. al. 2014:36) The “negotiate with each state” attitude, again, proved the weakness of the