The 1780s: Acritical Period For The United States

The Articles of Confederation was written in 1777 by nearly the exact same people who would later go on to write the United States Constitution. This document was meant to unify the colonies to create a sufficient government. The Articles of Confederation’s focus was to ensure that the state and local government possessed the power throughout the colonies. However, the document failed the country due to the lack of a central government because the states did not want to reestablish the type of government that England had after the Revolutionary War. The lack of bigger government caused many problems that would make each state almost look like they’re were separate.

The government the Articles created had no power to tax, no power to regulate trade, and worst of all, no regulation of domestic affairs in the country. These things are important to have in a centralized power. At the time the government was depending on the good nature of the states to loan them money to repay war debts and to rebuild what was lost. But that was not cutting it. Finally they needed to discuss how and when the President would be elected into office.

The framers of the United States constitution decided to give more power to the federal government than the state government, the framers did this because they didn’t want to create a government with tyranny in it, they also did this to create new ideas for the states. The framers did this because they simply didn’t want the government to have complete control over the people, instead the framers wanted to have the people to have a government just not a complete power one. The framers wanted the people to be able to choose what kind of government they had, what kind of leader they had, they wanted to the people to have a choice. Some problems that the articles of confederation had is that that the articles limited the government significantly.

The Articles Of Confederation was approved in 1781, created an alliance of thirteen independent states. The states were only united in theory, even though the states acted on their own accord. Unlike todays government, the Articles Of Confederation consisted only of a one house legislature. There was no President, no executive branch, or court system. Also, each state had only one vote in the "congress".

Even though they wrote the Articles of Confederation to establish a national government after the United States declared Independence from Great Britain, the document still had some flaws. The Articles of Confederation lasted 8 years until each of the thirteen states became unhappy with the laws. The Articles of Confederation wasn’t working out because the states had more power than the central and national government. The Articles of Confederation had no power to create a national army or navy, and the Article had no way to solve quarrels among the states.

The Articles of Confederation failed because the articles offered no solutions. Many of these issues did not propose innovation and were primarily conservative providing each state with its own autonomy with minimal influence by the federal government (Schultz, n.d.). This led to multiple disagreements between each state, with each state viewing its own power as a priority over the unity of the Confederation. This created multiple weaknesses within the articles, which includes the following (Articles of Confederation, 2018). Each state, regardless of its size, only had one vote in Congress.

The problems that related to the federal government by the Articles were that they had no ability to levy taxes and had limited sources of credit (Schultz). This debt was but one of three problems they faced, another of which being the lack of unanimity to make any type of changes. Without a leader within the group, the issue of internal trade also became a weakness of the Articles' laws. One example is that each state had their own form of money which inhibited the trade system between them and discouraged regional projects for development which stunted

Not everything is done correct the first time around. Surprisingly, this is also true for America’s national government. The Articles of Confederation was the constitution of the United States for the first few years of its existence, however, it had many flaws that jeopardized said existence. These flaws included but are not limited to the fact that the national government didn't have the power to tax the states, it couldn't enforce its own laws, but rather only create them, no national currency, however each state had its own currency, a national army could be put in place, and the same goes for a national court. The voting process for each state was also an issue since each state only received one vote which was not fair to

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 period between the adoption of the Articles of Confederation in 1781 and the drafting of the new Constitution in 1787 was one of weakness, dissension and turmoil. Under the Articles of Confederation, no provisions were made for an executive branch to enforce the laws nor for a national court system to interpret them. A legislative Congress was the sole organ of the national government, but it had no power to force the states to do anything against their will. It could declare war and raise an army, but it could not force any state to meet its assigned quota for troops or for the arms and equipment needed to support them. It looked to the states for the income needed to finance its activities, but it could not punish a state for not contributing its share of the federal budget.

The Articles of Confederation is “a loose association, rather than a firm unity of states.” This allows us U.S. states to be independent of each other. In 1781, it was

The Articles of Confederation is the compact between the thirteen states made the first government in the United States. Under the Articles, no matter the size each state had one vote in the congress. The articles jealously protected the states sovereignty. Important issues there had to be nine out of the thirteen states consent. The article failed in four places.

The independent states were distinctly united through defense and trade forming an alliance, rather than one unified people. Madison argues that “Under the form of such a constitution, it is in fact nothing more than a treaty of amity of commerce and of alliance, between so many independent and Sovereign States.” The Articles of Confederation formed as a treaty allows the succession of states through the violation of one party. Madison continues by describing that “…a breach of any of the articles of the confederation by any parties to it, absolves the other parties from their respective obligations, and gives them a right to choose to exert it, of dissolving the Union altogether.” In recognizing the Articles of Confederation as a treaty, it allows for the disband of the Union through the violation of the

The Articles of Confederation, which were ratified in 1781, created the first form of federal government, named the Articles of Confederation. In 1787, a convention was called to revise the Articles of Confederation due to the Articles creating a weak central government, which gave states more power over the central government. Alexander Hamilton wanted a strong central government, which led him to envision Congress calling a convention to revise the Articles. The two detrimental problems of the Articles of Confederation were that the federal government had too little power and could not take action without 9/13 states approval, which is 70% of the total states. Furthermore, the other detrimental problem with the Articles of Confederation is not being able to enforce laws, they made the federal government so weak that they couldn’t even enforce laws amongst themselves.

Following the Revolutionary War, America had just gained independance from Great Britain and needed to form a new government. The Articles of Confederation were established as an attempt to create a government that was unlike Britain’s. Unfortunately, the Articles of Confederation had several weaknesses. When in the process of repairing those weaknesses, the Federalists and the Anti-federalists formed. The Articles of Confederation were very weak as well as useless to America and because of this, the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists could not agree on a new type of government.