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Articles Of Confederation Pros And Cons

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The Articles of Confederation structured the first government of the thirteen states. The thirteen states included: Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Virginia, New York, Maryland, Massachusetts, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Rhode Island. However, Rhode Island did not vote to revise the Articles right away. Therefore, the proposals of the Constitution continued to be declined by the other states due to not having a balance on votes. When Rhode Island finally sent a representative to the Constitution Convention, the Constitution was approved. The Articles of Confederation guaranteed that the thirteen states kept its sovereignty, freedom, independence, power, and jurisdiction. But, the …show more content…

The debate for the proposals of the Constitution lasted a long period of time because the States did not agree with the proposals. Compromise was needed in this situation because the Convention would have taken longer than expected. With compromise, the structure of the national legislature was finally formed after months of debates. The plan was adopted: five states agreed, four states disagreed, and two states did not vote. With Rhode Island’s vote, the debates no longer had to to continue. This led to the structure of the government: the Virginia Plan and the New Jersey …show more content…

When James Madison promised that the Bill of Rights would be added to the Constitution, New York ratified the Constitution. The biggest problem my group faced was resolving the tensions over slavery. South Carolina wanted to include African Americans in their population, yet, the South did not want to assure that African Americans were given the same inalienable rights as others. William Patterson did not agree with including slaves in the population, however he did not have a choice but to compromise. The Founding Fathers agreed to allow slaveholder states to count three-fifths of their slave population when dividing the number of state’s representatives to Congress. The Founding Fathers also used this idea to increase the direct federal tax burden of slaveholding states. We did not meet the objective of abolishing slavery because the revised Articles left the power to regulate slavery to the individual states. William Paterson acknowledged that slavery violated the ideals of an American. However, he assured that slave trading was discontinued. We also had problems with agreeing on the powers of the legislature. States such as New York, with a small population wanted representation in both houses of the legislature to be based on the population. States with a large population wanted each state to have the same number of representatives. Due to this disagreement the debate continued. Without the vote of Rhode Island, the proposals of the

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The Great Compromise also known as Connecticut Compromise, proposed by Roger Sherman and Oliver Ellworth, permitted both large and small states to agree to the Constitution without immensely decreasing their power in Congress. The small-population states yearned for a Congress that approved of equal representation from all states, and the large-population states demanded a Congress with representation proportional to the number of citizens of each state. Sherman proposed a two house Congress with a House of Representatives depended on population and a Senate composed of two members from each state, regardless of its population. This dual system of representation is still

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Population does not determine how many votes they get and that would mean they are just as equal as the large state plan. “The so-called New Jersey Plan, presented by William Paterson of that state, called for a “federal” rather than a “national” government. Its essential feature — a single-house legislature in which each state was to have only one vote — seemed a reincarnation of the Articles of Confederation, but in fact it stipulated that the “federal Legislature” would be superior to those of the states and specifically gave to the central government a coercive power”. (Beeman) They came up with the plan that all states get an equal amount of representatives regardless of the state’s size.

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On 1787, a constitutional convention was held in Philadelphia state house, where three proposal were suggested: the Virginia Plan, the New Jersey Plan, and the Connecticut Compromise. The Virginia Plan intention was to establish a Congress with numerical representation and a more robust national government; however, this proposition led into an opposed proposal called The New Jersey plan. The New Jersey plan was made to make modification to the Articles of Confederation but more importantly, the plan is to make clear of whom has the power of what states. Two delegates from Connecticut were joined together to acquire the image only by the states in senate and numbers in the House, calling it the Connecticut Compromise. As all the Plans I previously mentioned, I will go on depth on how the Virginia Plan, the New Jersey Plan, and the Connecticut Compromise shape America today.

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To the population, war is when you are told what to fight for, and a revolution is when you decide for yourself. On April 19, 1775 was the day that America had decided for itself that we needed to be independent, the start of the American Revolution. The American revolution was over in about eight years. After the war Americans had decided to turn its focus inward and decide on what government they wanted and what America as a country would become. That is how the articles of confederation came to be on March 1, 1781 and of course like everything it had it’s pros, cons and results.

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The Articles of the Confederation was the first government constitution that the United States used, and, although there were strength like the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, there were major weaknesses of the Articles of the Confederation like the following: requiring 9 out of the 13 colonial votes from the representatives from different states to pass a law; having no executive and judicial branch; and the federal government being unable to impose tax revenue onto the states. Such flaws would eventually lead to the Constitution and the repeal of the articles, for the Constitution was a measure to fix the problems of the articles with a stronger government that allowed them to impose taxes and and implement new laws for a more effective government.

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The Articles of Confederation was an agreement among the thirteen original states of the United States that served as the first constitution. The Articles had first been introduced by Richard Henry Lee in the Second Continental Congress. Although the Articles of Confederation has made its contributions throughout history, the Articles, however, did not last very long and had been proven inadequate from the very start. I agree with this statement based on the examples and analysis of the Constitution I will soon provide. The Articles of Confederation were written during a time when the American people feared a strong national government.

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After the countless debates, the Great Compromise was what the convention would come into agreement with representation by population in the House of Representatives “The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand, but each state shall have at least one Representative. ”(add footnote) The smaller states were pleased with equal representation in the Senate “The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senates from each state and each Senator shall have one vote.”(add

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in place of to the founding of a legislature in which all states regardless of size could be represented equally. With each idea equally incompatible with the mission of the Founding Fathers, the conception of the Great Compromise was developed. Boyer described it as “whereby each state would have an equal vote in the upper house while representation in the lower house would be based on population (Boyer, et al.). On “July 17, 1787” (Boyer, et al.) this two-house compromise concept was agreed upon, and on “September 17, 1787” (Boyer, et al.)

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One of the compromises made in the Constitutional Convention is the three-fifths compromise. In this compromise, the southerners wanted to add slaves to the population of the state they lived in. If slaves were included in their state’s population, that state would be able to add more representatives in the House of Representatives. Northerners did not agree with that statement because slaves did not have the right to vote. After the delegates compromised, they agreed that only three-fifths of the slave’s population would be counted into the state’s population.

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State representation at the national level was a challenge for early government; some states supported New Jersey’s plan for representation, calling for each state's population to be represented equally, while others supported the Virginia Plan which stated that the population should determine the amount of representation each state should have. This dispute was solved by the Great Compromise, dividing congress into two houses: the house and the senate. The House reflected the Virginia Plan, allowing states to be represented accordingly with their population. In contrast, the Senate called for two representatives of each state regardless of that state’s population. With this compromise, no legislation could pass without the approval of both the house and the senate, giving them equal power.

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Two of the most important and difficult questions faced by the members of the Continental Congress in 1787 concerned state sovereignty and slavery. The founding fathers left no clear solution to the questions of states’ rights or slavery, leaving the door open to years of debate and political wrangling. Between 1788 when the Constitution was officially ratified, through mid-1850, both issues created an environment of debate and compromise that would dominate politics for years. Unable to take a definitive stand on either issue, Congress chose to enact several laws that would create a compromise and push the problem into the future rather than deal with solving these important issues. This strategy of compromise eventually lead to the Kansas-Nebraska

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The Articles of Confederation go through a long and difficult process. After the Independence War in 1776, the 13 states adopted the Articles of Confederation; it could not solve the problems in early time of America completely. It played an important role in the history of America, because these Articles influenced the Constitutional Convention and promoted the development of history of the United States. In history, Columbus discovered America land.

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Slavery in the U.S. Constitution After the Unites States declared Independence from Great Britain in 1776, they greatly feared a strong national government that would be like a monarchy like the one Great Britain had. To prevent this tyrannical government from happening in the U.S., a convention of delegates from all thirteen states were brought together to create the U.S.’s first written constitution: the Articles of Confederation. This convention was called the Continental Congress. The Articles of Confederation focused on having a federal government, or a loose alliance of the states.

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Since the small States did not want that the larger states represent more deputies in Congress, they demanded that every state has the same number of votes, however, the distribution of the population according to number gave states more votes. On 07/16/1787, the delegates adopted the "Great Compromise," in which the allocation of seats in Congress was decided. It was divided into 2 chambers: the House of Representatives and the Senate. In the House of Representatives one deputy per 30,000 citizens is voted, there were a different number of deputies in every state (due to the number of people in one state), which gave lager states advantages.

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The Articles of the Confederation was the first form of government created by the Continental Congress, which developed an alliance between the thirteen states. Congress was a single-chamber legislature which allowed for each state to possess the same amount of authority no matter the size of the community. The Constitution

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