Did The Constitution Create A More Perfect Union Essay

The Articles of Confederation made up America’s first constitution. This constitution was hastily and poorly made and solved the problem of a lack of government in America. The Articles were designed to limit the government’s power over the citizens. The Articles of Confederation also did not include anything about an individual or a president to guide the country. This was because of the colonists’ past experience with Britain’s king and him having too much power over the people.

The major weakness of the article was the lack of power given to the Continental Congress. It strangled the federal government. The Articles gave Congress the power to pass laws but no power to enforce those laws. “If a state did not support a federal law, that state could simply ignore it”. Another main reason to replace the article, was to form a stronger government.

The reason that the Articles of Confederation established such a weak government was because the colonists were afraid that a strong central government would become tyrannical and oppressive like the British were towards the colonists. However, instead of leading to the downfall of America, the deficiencies that were evident in the Articles of Confederation furthered the definition of the principles of America because the insufficient government of that time voiced a need for a stronger government. To answer this need, the colonists passed the Constitution of the United States. The founding fathers ratified the Constitution in 1787, and it established a much stronger government than the Articles of Confederation. The Constitution founded the laws that would govern America for centuries; it was a crucial factor in the development of the identity of America.

The Constitution is better than the Articles of Confederation because the Articles of Confederation had many weaknesses. The Articles did not give Congress the power to place tariffs on foreign goods, hurting American businesses that could not compete with cheaper British goods. The U.S. government had no chief executive so there was no one to enforce the laws that were passed. The new Constitution addressed many of the problems created by the Articles by creating a federal system of government with a much more powerful national government. The Constitution made a stronger Federal government that could unite the States, taking many of the powers held by the States: the right to tax, the right to raise armies, the right to regulate trade and

Contrary to popular belief, the United States has two constitutions: the Articles of Confederation and the present day constitution. So, what happened to the Articles of Confederation? The Articles of Confederation failed for many reasons: the reluctancy of the individual states to surrender their powers to a national government, the impotence of Congress to tax the colonies in order to pay off war debts or pay veterans of the American Revolution, the inability to back up the currency coined by Congress, the institution of multiple currency as states began to coin their own money, and the lack of power to regulate trade and commerce among the states or foreign nations. In addition, the Articles of Confederation limited the executive and judicial

The Federalists and Democratic-Republicans almost never agreed about anything. The founders of the parties had ideas about how to run the country that were so different that they had to create two separate political parties. They disagreed on almost every topic they discussed, but some major feuds were about whether our economy should rely on manufacturing or agriculture, our federal government should be led by wealthy or average people, our federal government should be stronger or the states should have more power, and what country we should support during the French revolution. The founder of the Federalist Party was named Alexander Hamilton. He was born in the West Indies and raised on a Caribbean island called St. Croix.

US History Test #2 The United States Constitution responded effectively to the weaknesses of the Article of Confederation, and provided important “checks” on power distributed among the three branches within the new, more powerful federal government. The Articles of Confederation left out very important powers that were later added in the United states Constitution like “Checks and Balances” which allow the three branches to almost have equal power. Each of the branches have the power to keep a bill from becoming a law. These “Checks” can also be a bad thing when a government becomes gridlocked. Gridlocked means that the government cannot pass any laws because the branches are all split on their decisions.

Checks and Balances Secondly, the separation of power provides a system of shared powers or checks and balances. By that I mean, that each branch has the power to limit or check the other two. The Constitution gave the most checks to Congress or the legislature. They did this because the framers did not want the president to gain enough power to become a tyrant. A few legislative checks include; the ability to impeach the president or judges, override a presidential veto, pass laws to overthrow supreme court decisions, and propose amendments to the Constitution.

All things considered, there are innumerable amounts of reasons that combined to create the American Revolution such as taxation without representation, mercantilism, British self-government, and so much more. Overall, the underlying reason for the revolt was the poor treatment of colonists in the Americas. Self-government was the idea that, typically within a colony, there would be elected rulers that are free to make a majority of decisions without having the need to refer to the official imperial power of the colony. It was established in the Britain, saying that British Parliament, rather than the king, had the absolute authority in government. In the 1730s, the Parliament started passing taxes, regulating the British colonies in the Americas.

Americans in general view America as an ideal democracy in which every citizen has a voice and the views of the public have the power to shape the country. It is somewhat ironic, then, that the Constitutional Convention as a whole was mistrustful of democracy. Perhaps the most prominent holder of this opinion was James Madison, who was very vocal about the oppressive results of majority rule. Madison was of the opinion that the best way to ensure liberty was not leave it in the hands of the general public, but rather to split the federal government and allow each of the resulting branches curtail the power of the others. As Madison said in Federalist No.