Articles Of Confederation Failure

Congress did not possess the ability to tax and states were not willing to give money to support the government of their own free will. Congress did not have the ability to regulate exchange of business between foreign countries or between the states. This combined with each state printing its own form of money led to an extremely unstable economy. Congress quickly realized that an executive branch was needed in order to inforce the acts they passed; unfortunately it may have been realized too late. In western Massachusetts between 1786 and 1787 a slew of protests arose from local farmers who were opposed to the state and local enforcement of tax collections and judgments for debt.

Taxing was apportioned due to the size of each state; bigger states would rebel because they were paying much more taxes than a smaller state (doc. 5). The representatives from smaller states would try and enforce taxes so the larger states would have to pay much, much more; the smaller states wouldn 't have to pay much at all. Shays Rebellion was also an outcome that the inability to tax led to; farmers and workers were getting too high of a tax, so they rebelled, later causing the government to rethink its

This was originally not seen as a problem, as the newly-independent Americans had just seceded from what they believed to be a despotic, tyrannical regime of King George III. However, the weak central government's inability to tax soon led to problems, most famously Shays’ Rebellion. Without having a national tax imposed to pay for the Revolutionary War, many people went bankrupt and lost their homes, farms

All these financial and political problems were due to a loose union of thirteen states known as the Articles of Confederation. Although the Articles of Confederation was a big help to make our new nation, it failed in many ways. The national government was unable to solve all the problems mentioned in the previous paragraphs. As a result, in 1787 a meeting was held in Philadelphia by Congress and asked each state to send their delegates to discuss about how to improve the Articles of Confederation. They wrote a new constitution even though they gather to improve the Article of Confederation.

Under the Articles of Confederation, Congress was given authority to declare war, make peace, make treaties and alliances, to coin or borrow money, and to regulate trade with the Native Americans (Ginsberg 35). Moreover, the central government had no power to levy taxes or regulate commerce among the states with the Articles of Confederation (Ginsberg 35). Not to mention, States also retained governmental powers under the Articles of Confederation (Ginsburg 36). In which, States conserved their dominance under Article of Confederation, as Article II states, “each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every Power, Jurisdiction and right, which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled ” (Ginsberg 36). Under this well-established sovereignty, States, for the most part, had the capability to install their own militia, industries, general welfare, money, and

Currency between each state was not uniform, resulting in unequal amounts of money being exchanged. In addition, Congress did not have the power to tax—British taxes in the past on goods like tea left the colonists with a fear of tariffs. Because the government could not tax, the United States did not have a way to pay off all of its debt, both national, from the war, and foreign. The United States owed a significant amount of money to Europe. Furthermore, lack of funds prevented the government from maintaining a competent military.

The King of Great Britain was also imposing taxes without the consent of the people in the Americas and thus it angered the colonists. The Constitution fixed this grievance from the Declaration by stating that the Congress was the only ones with the power to collect taxes from the colonists and since they were people elected, the people had a voice to say whether or not they were paying taxes. King George III of Great Britain decided that he would destroy all trading with the colonists and the members of congress came up with the idea that they would have the only power to regulate the trading. This also brought along the ever popular saying, “taxation without representation”. When it comes to the military powers, they were also deemed to be unfair and this grievance needed to be addressed by

The Articles of Confederation were approved on November 1777, which left many constraints on the federal government. The people were so worried about corruption, that they left the government powerless on all affairs, including foreign relations, military, Indian issues, and interstate disputes. In addition it denied Congress the power of taxation, the states were supposed to donate money to the government, which rarely occured. Each state had only one vote in Congress, but could send as many as seven delegates or as few as two, but if they divided equally on an issue the state lost its vote. There was not a President or independent executive and no veto over legislate decisions.

The constitution was able to address the problems with the Articles of Confederation. The Constitution created a Federalist government with a strong central government at the national level and weaker governments at state and local levels. It gave the national government the power to tax, draft troops, control interstate commerce, etc. Also because of the failure of the Articles of Confederation the Bill of Rights was established. With the Bill of rights in place and all the news laws into order the constitution was able to repair the failure that the Articles of Confederation

The Articles of Confederation were a document seen as the “first” constitution of the United States. This document granted the new national government power to control the military, declare war, and create treaties between the states. However, the Articles had holes in it considering the government did not have the power to tax, create laws without at least nine states’ approval, or change the Articles of Confederation without a unanimous vote. This means that the country soon fell into debt and petty arguments between state, the new government had no control. It was time for a change.

Article 1, § 10, clause 2 of the document was commonly referred to as the “Import-Export Clause,” which main goal was to prevent the states, without consent from Congress, from imposing tariffs on imports and exports above what is necessary for their inspection laws. Restrictions were imposed on the clause to ensure fairness among state tariffs such as the Tonnage Clause and Commerce Clause, which both prevented states from imposing taxes on certain amounts of imported goods. Found in Article 1, § 9, clause 5 of the Constitution was the “Export Clause,” which prohibits the federal government from imposing any “tax or duty… on articles exported from any state.” This was a clause mostly supported by the southern states, which feared northern states would control a larger portion of Congress and subsequently raise a disproportionate amount of revenue for the federal government. The abolition of unnecessary taxes would’ve temporarily reduced federal government income, but satisfied the general public with the financial security they wanted that essentially caused the Revolution.

The Articles of Confederation was an agreement among the thirteen original states of the United States that served as the first constitution. The Articles had first been introduced by Richard Henry Lee in the Second Continental Congress. Although the Articles of Confederation has made its contributions throughout history, the Articles, however, did not last very long and had been proven inadequate from the very start. I agree with this statement based on the examples and analysis of the Constitution I will soon provide. The Articles of Confederation were written during a time when the American people feared a strong national government.

Contrary to popular belief, the United States has two constitutions: the Articles of Confederation and the present day constitution. So, what happened to the Articles of Confederation? The Articles of Confederation failed for many reasons: the reluctancy of the individual states to surrender their powers to a national government, the impotence of Congress to tax the colonies in order to pay off war debts or pay veterans of the American Revolution, the inability to back up the currency coined by Congress, the institution of multiple currency as states began to coin their own money, and the lack of power to regulate trade and commerce among the states or foreign nations. In addition, the Articles of Confederation limited the executive and judicial

This is one of the successful parts of the Articles of Confederation because under the articles, the government cannot institute tax thus the government cannot make money. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 removed debts from the states and it also allowed the government to raise money by selling off the new

The United States confronted many problems once they gained their independence from Great Britain. One of the biggest problems was their form of government at that time, which was stated in the Articles of Confederation. This presented many problem to the states, as stated in a document about the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution, some of the problems of the Articles of Confederation were the poor international trade, poor foreign relations, weak economy, and Shay’s Rebellion. The people, specifically the Federalists, wanted a new government because of the weakness of the government at that moment. According to many history books, the government also faced financial problems and tried to resolve them by taxing the states, because