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Articles Of Confederation: Weak Components Of The US Constitution

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Paige Balestrieri January 1st, 2017 Honors US History I Period 1 Chapter 9 Alternative Assessment Answers The Articles Of Confederation had many weak components to it. With those weaknesses, the one that stood out was how all power rested within the states. Without a lot of power in the central government but instead in the states, it caused a law to have to be passed throughout all of the states to be amended by the central government. With this, not a lot of laws were able to get amended. Another reason why the A.O.C. had to be replaced was how the states had the choice of paying taxes to congress or not doing so. This caused a shortage of money within the central government which made it difficult to pay off …show more content…

To start off, the Articles of Confederation was an influence for the US Constitution which is the reason for their similarities. One of these similarities is that both documents established a form of a national government and according to page 182 of “The American Pageant”, “powers that were to be exercised.” Although they both established a national government, the thing that made the two contradict each other was the power it had. Within the Articles of Confederation, the central government was made weak, the states being sovereign due to a fear of a strong central government abusing its power like Britain did prior to the American Revolution. However, in the Constitution, the central government had power over all the states instead of making them sovereign. Due to the Constitution allowing the states to be governed as a whole, it caused national unity as it also allowed national debt to start being payed off from the Revolutionary war from the states as a whole as opposed to letting states tax each other. Another similarity between these two documents was that states could not go alone into a war and had to depend on themselves as well as other states to contribute forces. The Articles of Confederation didn’t allow congress to deal with troops but states had that power instead. However, in the Constitution, congress dealt with troops …show more content…

A short term effect would have been difficulty to maintain an army. The states did have a way to have an army through sending delegates to serve, but due to a central government not controlling it, there would be some difficulty with keeping military situations under control. There would be very few short-term effects, but the long-term effects would have caused a lot of damage to the US. One of these effects would be the debt they had to pay off. Due to states having the option to not give any money to congress, it caused a shortage of money. If it wasn’t for the Constitution, congress wouldn’t have eventually gained the money to pay off their debt the Revolutionary War caused. Another long-term effect would’ve been conflict between states. With no national justice system set up, the sovereign states wouldn’t be able to settle disputes themselves. If these states couldn’t settle any disputes, it would’ve caused conflict and eventually, they would have completely turned against each other instead of allowing a

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