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Why Are The Articles Of Confederation Still Relevant Today

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In 1776, the United States declared its’ independence from the tyrannical government of Britain and King George III. The newfound nation was now stuck trying to create its own system of government that would avoid all of the unitary government problems that they had just escaped. The Americans found themselves extremely loyal to their states and terrified of a centralized government. This school of thought produced the Articles of Confederation, or the first system of government in the United States. The Articles of Confederation would eventually be removed and changed to the Federal Republic that stands in our country today.

After declaring independence from Britain, the American people wanted to avoid a centralized government …show more content…

The convention was held solely for the purpose of replacing the Articles of Confederation. The new Constitution was created with the intention of establishing a form of a central government that with real power. The lack of power and ability to unite the state governments as one sovereign nation had been an extreme issue with the Articles. The articles had left the state governments sovereign and bound them together with an extremely weak form of a “treatie” for emergency situations. This left trade and other important issues at the mercy of the states and put the young nation in a state of turmoil. The American people knew that the Articles would not be a successful form of government, thus determining that it needed to be replaced by something …show more content…

A problem that arose during the Articles of Confederation was the fact that there were no laws over states, no enforcement of these laws, and no interpretation of these laws. The founders saw these three errors and came up with the legislative (creation of laws), judicial (interpretation of laws) and executive (enforcement of laws). These three branches gave the federal government the ability to solve issues between states and also to form treaties and negotiate with other countries. A system known as checks and balances was also put into place to keep control in the hands of the people. The system lets the branches check the power of the other branches and keep them from becoming too strong. The Articles of Confederation created a free for all amongst the states and basically left them all as their own sovereign nations. The new form of government bound them all together as one independent nation while still giving states power to police themselves on certain

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