What Are The Effects Of The Articles Of Confederation Perpetual Union

The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union were created to hold the United States of America together during times of war. In the Articles, the founding fathers granted most governmental powers to the states, leaving only those necessary for the war effort – primarily the declaration of war, the creation of peace treaties, and the conduction of foreign relations – to the federal government. In this system, individual states were given precedence over the entire nation – an aspect that led to its downfall after the Revolutionary War. The Articles of Confederation denied the federal government the ability to issue taxes and tariffs – a power so necessary to the new country’s success, and yet so feared by its forefathers. They supported

The first citizens of the United States were all too familiar with taxation – mainly unfair tariffs, like British Parliament’s notorious taxes on stamped paper and tea. The founding fathers shared their fears, and created the Articles to address them. The Articles did not allow the federal government to directly issue any taxes to its citizens, or place any tariffs on global or internal trade; instead, they had to formally request a change in the tax code, which then had to go through a nearly impossible ratification process by the states. Despite reducing the chance of the government being able to implement a harsh and unfair tax, the Articles destroyed any hope for the government to properly function financially. Without proper funding from taxes and tariffs, Congress wasn’t able to repay Revolutionary War debts to Spain or France. Even worse, Congress was unable to pay the soldiers of the Continental Army for their services in the War of Independence. The delayed payment nearly ignited a military coup, which would ensure the immediate dissolution and destruction of the newly created United States. Fortunately, the founders were wise enough to address the issue in the United States Constitution before anything got out of hand. The federal government now had the power to collect taxes from its citizens, and impose tariffs on

Taking these powers away, or preventing the government from passing laws to enforce them, would eventually lead to the collapse of the country. That is exactly what the Articles of Confederation did for the United States: instead of granting the powers of creating and enforcing laws to Congress, laws created by the states took precedence over those ordained by their national government. The mismatch of power outlined by the Articles worked against the nation as a whole – instead of being one firmly united country, it became a loose association of independent nation-states. Under the Articles, a law passed by Congress required nine of thirteen states to ratify it before it could take effect – and unfortunately, territorial and economic feuds between states ensured that successful ratification was extremely rare. Even after the new laws were ratified, Congress had no power to enforce them – in fact, no person or organization of the federal government had this power. The production and enforcement of national laws became a false process; that is, no state was truly affected by anything Congress created. The founding fathers realized that without this power, the federal government would lose all control over the states, and made allowances for it in the Constitution. The United States Constitution gave Congress the power to create and pass laws without state approval. An