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How Did The Articles Of Confederation Give More Power To The Government Than The States

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When the United States of America began to fight the Revolutionary War in 1775, they would need a governing body to run the new country. However, seeing as they had just escaped from a tyrannical government under England, the Articles of Confederation gave the states a very large amount of power so that they would not have the same problem again. However, although this government gave many states what they wanted, it was not strong enough to run a country. So, when writing a new Constitution the founding fathers gave more power to the federal government than the states because of the former government. The Articles of Confederation had many things that it could not do, things that were needed in order to have a strong central government. For example, the federal government could decide to wage war, however they had no national army to fight and the states were responsible to gather their own militias. A good example of this is Shays Rebellion. Led by Daniel Shays- a Massachusetts farmer and a war veteran- a group of farmers went to the Springfield Arsenal as …show more content…

According to the map “Ratification of the Federal Constitution, 1787-1790,” a large amount of the states had a federalist majority, meaning that they supported the Constitution. Most of the Federalists were rich men who were large landowners, judges, lawyers, leading clergymen and merchants. Led by Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, James Madison, and George Washington, federalists “believed the national government was too wear under the Articles of Confederation” and wanted a strong federal government (Document 3). However, the antifederalists disagreed with the Constitution. They “feared strong national government would lead to tyranny” and wanted strong state governments (Document 3). Led by Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Adams, and Patrick Henry, the antifederalists were mainly supported by small farmers, small landowners, and

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