Following the Revolutionary War, America had just gained independance from Great Britain and needed to form a new government. The Articles of Confederation were established as an attempt to create a government that was unlike Britain’s. Unfortunately, the Articles of Confederation had several weaknesses. When in the process of repairing those weaknesses, the Federalists and the Anti-federalists formed. The Articles of Confederation were very weak as well as useless to America and because of this, the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists could not agree on a new type of government.
In 1777 congress adopted the Articles Of Confederation which failed to give the United States an effective government so most the power went to the Federal government. The Articles of Confederation had many problems that would loss of power in the government. The Federal government wanted power in the national government and felt the Constitution would help manage the debt. The Anti-Federalist wanted power in the states and wanted limited federal power. Congress had done things that benefited the United States while the second continental congress created a government that lacked power which cause problems.
In the middle of the 18th century, Britain and France were at war against each other. Both the British and the French wished to extend their colonies in North America into the territory west of the Appalachian Mountains. Britain’s purpose of this expansion was to gain more territory and power, whereas the French were pursuing trade with the Native Americans that lived in that part of the country. After seven years of fighting, Britain had won the war, and Treaty of Paris of 1763 officially resolved the French and Indian War. Despite the immense amount of land that Britain attained in the aftermath of this war, they were in severe debt because the French and Indian War was unbearably expensive. As a result, Britain decided to tax their colonists
The Constitution was a document that was written by our Founding Fathers. It defines what our government is and what it does. It is the basic blueprint for all the laws in the country and it provides the three branches of the U.S government the power it needs to rule this nation effectively. But the Constitution wasn’t always how it is now, it used to be called the Articles of Confederation and it had many problems that are no longer present in our current Constitution.
The Articles of Confederation were a major improvement over the past government of England, in which the power only belongs to a few people, the king and parliament. The Articles of Confederation allowed each individual state to have its own power. Congress could not require any state to pay taxes, nor could they require to build a national army. Preventing tyranny was a major idea and a major goal that the Articles of Confederation produced. One other improvement that the Articles of Confederation instituted was the idea of not only reducing the power of the king, but increasing the power of the people. The people were “fed up” with all of their decisions being made by the central government, and as a result, The Articles of Confederation
There was the problem that the articles wouldn’t be able to raise taxes. Which caused the inability to get the country out of debt which had came from the revolutionary war. Also the inconvenience of not being able to support any of the government projects, war, or sciences that the government chooses to fund. Congress couldn’t regulate trade, this could cause many issues among the colonies. Such as trading with countries in which other colonies do not like or have issues with could cause trade to stop between those two colonies or multiple colonies. Another thing that is important within the Articles of confederation is that laws could be passed by 9/13 states. That sounds fine and dandy but the story behind that makes it seem like it was pointless and unfair. There was resistance for ratification of the Articles of Confederation from New York, Pennsylvania,Virginia and Rhode island which had gotten the nickname “rouge island” because of all the resistance the continental congress had encountered from Rhode island. If you do some simple math the only states that needed to approve it were the ones who didn’t offer resistance to the Articles and wanted a new government. Another silly thing all the founding fathers missed in the Articles is that the continental congress couldn’t enforce any laws. Which in so many words meant that congress could make all the laws they wanted but none of the states had to follow it due to the state government having much more power than the federal government. All the flaws in the Articles in confederation had made many things happen such as Shay’s rebellion and of course the adaptation of our new government which took ten months for the first nine states to ratify the rest of course came one by
In 1777, the Continental Congress completed the first written American constitution, the Articles of Confederation. The Articles of Confederation was created to form an alliance between the 13 colonies. It was working out well in the beginning until serious problems started to appear. Those were money problems and most importantly, a weak government.
The primary weakness of the Articles of Confederation is that each state retained all sovereignty over itself. Sovereignty is defined as ultimate authority over someone, something, or someplace. Although the National Government had enough power, it gave too much to the states. This lead to a plethora of problems that harmed the government of the United States under the Articles of Confederation. One example of this was the states did not have to pay the government taxes. They gave what they wanted to give, because the government had no power to tax. Another example is that the the national government had the power to coin money; however, the states had this power too. These allowed for an abundance of different currencies to be in the United
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. Since the United States was relatively a new nation, it needed some form of organization to hold the states together and keep its government and society stable to build a stronger economy (Knoedl, 2003).
The Articles of Confederation went into effect 1781 and was an easy way for Congress to borrow money, settle disputes, enter into treaties, establish armed forces, regulate coinage, etc. The Articles of Confederation, however, did come with flaws. Congress could not regulate commerce and directly tax the people. Congress could not compel states to pay their share of government costs and lacked power to enforce its laws. Congress could not enforce foreign treaties with the states and states entered into treaties independent of Congress. Congress could not draft soldiers. Approval of nine of thirteen states needed to enact legislation and the Amendments to the Articles required the consent of all thirteen states. With the Articles of Confederation
On March 1st, 1781, the Articles of Confederation were ratified by all thirteen states and adopted as the first official set of laws of the United States of America. After a short time, the Articles’ inadequacies became apparent to the newly formed country. These flaws included, over-powerful state governments, a weak central government, a lack of an independent judiciary system, and an impractical amendment making process. While the problems of the Articles were numerous, the excessively-dominant state governments, the federal government lacking the means to enforce economical parchment powers, and the lack of defensive powers granted to the federal government, proved to be the most detrimental to American society.
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.
In 1781,the articles of confederation were ratified. This was the first form of central government in America. America just got out of a tyranny, so they tried their best to limit the government's power. This resulted in a very weak Central Government. What two main weaknesses of the articles of confederation caused the articles to be a bad form of government. Some people might venture to say they weren't as bad. However, because they established no national court system, and gave most of the power to the states, most people say that the Articles of confederation were a very bad form of government.
Alexander Hamiltion had wrote The Federalist 21 to express the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation. The Federalist 21 talks about many weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation. The specific weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation according to The Federalsit 21 included the following, the first weakness is the inability of the government to enforce its legistation. The government could pass laws but could not force the laws on the states. States could choice to disregard the laws without conquences from the government. What was the point of making a law if the states did not have to follow them? The second weakness of the Articles of Confederation was that the government had no authority to protect state government from being
The Article of Confederation was the first written agreement in the United states. There are many strengths of the Article of Confederation. Congress gain the power to deal with foreign affairs. Not only did it they deal foreign affairs, it also dealt with Native American affairs. They also had power to regulate coinage. It encouraged coordination and cooperation between different states and they can settle disputes between the states. It allowed the formation of the states such as Maryland. The Northwest Ordinance of 1781, brought in new territories that was located north Ohio River. The weakness was that Congress had no power to regulate commerce or trade between the states, each state could put taxes on trade between states. They also didn't