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Strengths And Weaknesses Of The Articles Of Confederation

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In 1776, the United States was in the midst of a revolution. They fought to free themselves from Britain’s tight control. The war was disorganized because the United States had no national government to manage it. Thus, in 1777, the Articles of Confederation were adopted. Despite their weaknesses, there were benefits to the Articles of Confederation because of the freedom it granted to states. Congress achieved major accomplishments under the Articles of Confederation. It successfully ended the American Revolution by signing the Treaty of Paris. Congress also made each state recognize the laws of other states. (“We the People” 97) This increased communication between the states because citizens were allowed to freely travel between …show more content…

Because it had no power to control states, the Articles of Confederation were weak. The government had no money and no power to raise revenue. “Congress had no power to tax. All Congress could do was ask states to pay certain amounts to support the costs of the national government.” (98) This meant that congress could not fund war efforts or pay soldiers to fight in the American Revolution. Laws made by Congress were also commonly ignored. Since Congress left most of the power to the states, it could not force anybody to obey its laws. (98) Congress could enforce neither national nor international trade regulations. “Sometimes citizens imported goods from other countries and then refused to pay for them…Congress had no power to make laws regarding trade among states. States taxed goods going from one state to another.” (99) This caused many citizens to lose their jobs and disrupted many international trade agreements. The ineffectiveness of the Articles of Confederation made the lives of citizens more difficult and made fighting the Revolutionary War even harder for the

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During the Revolutionary War, the Articles of Confederation provided a necessary government that weakly bonded the thirteen states together. The Articles essentially made the states a confederacy without much order. Firstly, governments require a stream of revenue to function properly, and the weak tax authority of the Articles prevented America from paying debts. The Revolutionary War came with staggering costs that left the Continental Congress in debt.

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The Articles of Confederation provided the United States with a predominantly ineffective government that could not deal with problems at home and abroad. The country was unable to regulate commerce and effectively deal with foreign nations from 1781 to 1789. Although there were some advantages to the first constitution, the issues caused by the document greatly outweighed the benefits. The Articles of Confederation limited America’s ability to deal problems within its own borders and with foreign nations.

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Although the Articles of Confederation served a great purpose and had numerous advantages and strengths, it also contained many weaknesses with some flaws. One of the weaknesses is that this agreement could not enforce laws or have the power to tax the people of the colony. Along with this, the government could also not allow each of he states to continue to follow those laws. There was also no national army or navy, no national courts, no solid leadership or power in a position to take charge, and there was only one vote for each state no matter what the size of the state is. The main reason Americans wanted to construct a weak national government was to prevent the them from gaining too much power and allowing the government to eventually

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Articles of Confederation was the written document that established the functions of the national government of the United States after it declared independence from Great Britain.” The Articles were needed after the United States won war. There was no unity among the country. They used the Articles as their set of rules. There were many important people that had to do with the constitution.

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The articles of Confederation were drafted with an aim to succeed, but there were some allocations that were not considered. The first concern that was not considered was how powerful the federal government was supposed to be. The founding fathers knew that confederation was going to make the United States a unit, which means that decisions such as international relations, was to be controlled centrally. The congress and the executive were not given sufficient powers to engage military action. The congress had to borrow military empowerment from the states.

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This lead to the exclusion of taxation powers in the federal government, meaning they had very little money to pay their large debt from the war, pay the soldiers for their service, or even just run the government. Under the Articles of Confederation, Congress was only able to simply request money from the states, of course the states rarely met these requests, which left the federal government with very little money and very little power overall. After the American Revolutionary War, the United States had a large debt to many different countries and was now unable to pay it off because it raised virtually no money under the Articles of Confederation. Also, the states and Congress shared the right to coin money and regulate said money. Currency was overprinted and created an economic crisis due to the inflation caused from the shared power of printing the currency.

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The Articles of Confederation were weak. Thus, they were not able to support the United States in various way. The Articles could not support the US finically. The US also did not have a military to protect its citizens. The Articles of Confederation were weak because there was no strong central government, you had to have a unamouis vote, and the central government could not tax.

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Most of the power, under the Articles, was given to the states, so they all went in different directions, in terms of their individual governments. As for Congress, it was given little authority or support, which led to the failure of almost every diplomatic relationship. The issues with the document was that the American Congress had limited power and couldn’t create specific laws that dealt with issues with foreign countries and the economy of the states because, under the document, they were considered unconstitutional. George Washington, the general of the American army during the Revolutionary War, believed “it [was] necessary to revise and amend the articles of confederation, I entertain no doubt; but what may be the consequences of such an attempt is doubtful. Yet something must be done, or the fabrick must fall, for it certainly is tottering,” after the hardships with supplies, training, and lack of “advanced” artillery him and his men had experienced during the winter at Valley Forge from 177 to 1778.

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