The British monarchy’s control over the American territory had left a flavor of distrust for power in the palate of Americans. The British set the precedent for the American political system. After the colonial period, the colonies agreed that there was nothing to fear more than the government, or in this case the king. Britain over the years has held its unitary form of government, which in this case means that all governmental power resided within the hands of a single branch. In this type of system, the legislature has all the power to create and enforce legislation. This system represented for Americans a terrible thing, a political structure in which individuals were subjected to the king and had no say over policy. The thought of the …show more content…
Not so long after, problems arose with the governmental system and our founding fathers gathered and started considering different ideas to improve the governmental structure. Large and small states had different suggestions on what should be done to solve the problem. Yet, two things remained clear; Americans feared the British system and wanted nothing similar to it and, the Articles of Confederation had proved inefficient due to the restricted power of the federal government. Two main plans were the reason of debate, the battle was between the federalist and the antifederalist. The powers vested on the executive were a big part of the discussion and the arguments were sustained through a series of publications called the Federalist …show more content…
Constitutionally, Lincoln went beyond the powers the Constitution had vested in the presidency. The suspension of Habeas Corpus constitutes part of the powers granted to Congress by Article I, section 9. Similarly, the powers to raise and support armies are also vested within Congress. However, Lincoln’s desperate measures came in times of desperate needs. The legislative branch was in recess during this period and the executive took into his hands the power he felt necessary to deal with the civil
With a revolution starting, the thirteen colonies needed to implement a new government to replace, and improve upon the British one that the colonies were fighting against. The Founding Fathers’ first attempt at such a government was drafted and defined in the Articles of Confederation. This draft was put in front of the Second Continental Congress in 1777. It was completely ratified and adopted by March 1, 1781. While battles large and small enveloped the fledling country, it was written quickly, and in the grand scheme of things was also adopted and implemented rather quickly.
The Articles of Confederation had many weaknesses as well as positives. From the pros side we have Josh DiGiorgio and Jacob Chrispim. From the cons side we have Grayson Jons and Lexi Rosmarin. We will start with the cons.
The United States should adopt the Constitution to replace the Articles of Confederation. The new Constitution provides many advantages and new opportunities. First, the Constitution gives more power to the national government in many ways. For example, under the Articles the national government had to ask the states for money, but under the Constitution the government is provided with money and the power to tax. In addition, the Articles allowed states to regulate trade causing each state to tax one another's products.
In September 1777 on November 15th the Articles of Confederation were adopted by congress. This would be a decision that shaped america for better and worse. In essence the articles of confederation was created because a constitution was needed to link the 13 colonies of America. This planned backfired however, leaving the government and congress without power. Citizens of the U.S were quick to to ratify the Articles in 1779 on may 5th.
The constitution of the United States was a document created to fix the major problems the Confederation government had following its creation. The meetings in which the document was created founded the style of government that has lasted to this day. It created the Executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government, it created our bill of rights, and it separated powers between the states and the newly formed federal government. Negotiations started as very difficult between the representatives of the separate states.
When we made the Articles of Confederation, we did not see all of the problems that would come with it. This New Constitution could change all of that, with this we could finally give the government the power to collect taxes, and the power to create an army. These are just two of the many things that we could do with this New Constitution. There were many weaknesses that the Articles of Confederation had that made it so that when something needed to be done, we had to have a vote that 8 of the states had to agree to.
I am Jonathan Dayton, hailing from New Jersey, and I am a Federalist. I am here today at the Constitutional Convention to discuss the pros and cons of the our nation’s governing documents. I will be speaking in favor of a constitution rather than articles of confederation. Speaking as a Federalist, I see some flaws in the Articles of the Confederation. One feature of the Articles of Confederation is that the power of voting would be in the hands of the people.
of the Constitution to the states for consideration. To amend the Articles of Confederation had required unanimous approval of the states. The delegates agreed to change the approval process for the Constitution so only nine of the thirteen states had approved. After this, the new government of the United States would come into existence.
The birth of the United States of America began with the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration set the standard of justice for which the country would move towards overtime. The Declaration also provided guidance for the constitution. One of the major themes that demonstrates this connection is the institutional design of the executive. This is greatly evidenced through the grievances stated in the Declaration and it’s clear that these greatly influenced the design of the executive in the constitution starting with the term limit, and overall structure of the the executive branch.
In 1776, our union is finally independent from Great Britain. Now that our country is an independent nation, our founding fathers are deciding which government system it is going to rule under. Certainly, our founding fathers did not want this country to be rule under a monarchy system because of the conflicts they faced with Great Britain. The founding fathers all sat together at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia to create a new kind of government that will have a minimal amount of problems. At first, the founding father created the Articles of Confederation, which is, each state maintains its own sovereignty and all rights to govern, except there were certain rights that were granted to Congress.
My Fellow Delegates it has become evident that the Articles of Confederation are not functioning for our country. Under this form of government we are too weak and have no power. Our ideals of creating a government where we do not have power to enforce laws, collect taxes, raise an army, or even regulate trade is not functioning. We cannot give our states this much power, we must have more power as a federal government. Seeing that we have a weak federal government, we have a lack of legitimacy and are unable to repay the money we borrowed to fight the Revolutionary War.
As it applies to the Articles of Confederation there were many weaknesses in the way it went about governing the United States. For one, the loose federation of the states was too weak to act as a foundation to be considered or act as a central government. In addition the state legislatures had too much power and in turn had the ability to influence economic issues of all kinds. This strong legislature is the same one that allowed for mob ruling and actions by debtors. The Articles of confederation were also weak because the required congress to have all 13 colonies in agreement when a new tax was to be passed.
The “search for national government” in Brinkley (2011) is broken down into five sections. The five sections are as follows The Confederation, Diplomatic Failures, The Confederation and the Northwest, Indians and the Western Lands, and finally Debts, Taxes, and Daniel Shays. In addition to discussing each section I will outline the successes and failures of the Articles of Confederation. After fighting a war with an overly restrictive and powerful federal government in the English monarchy America wanted the complete opposite from its own federal government.
While some Americans thought the Articles of Confederation was good since it waged in a successful war for independence, many Americans concluded that under the Articles of Confederation, there were many issues formed such as providing limited central government, developing many economic problems, and foreign powers. “The framers of the Articles of Confederation kept in mind their complaint against Britain. Parliament had passed laws the colonists considered unfair. The new states did not want to risk giving too much power to a central government far from the people”(Pearson, 206). This shows how the Articles provided a limited central government that lead many Americans to disagree with the Articles of Confederation.
Yet eventually the general public began to realize giving a single king the undivided authority of an entire region was unhelpful and unsafe for the people. In order to curb the power of the reigning monarch a parliament was instituted. The council in the parliament would construct and discuss new ideas, laws, and changes, then offer them to the king to disapprove or approve and institute. Despite the separation and invention of parliament no other form of ruling had successfully been applied. Yet after the revolution, American developed a new form of government that provided representation for individuals accountability to keep governing authorities in check.