Articles Of Confederation Flaws

er, the Articles placed the power in the hands of the state, which led to economic troubles; but it also led to leadership shortfall. The fact that there was no independent judiciary, no leader of foreign affairs, and an inability to deal with internal and external threats made, caused a lot of problems for America. Finally, the Articles of Confederation was ineffective in making a set of rules that made legislating under this structure inefficient. Each state had one vote, therefore, states with a large population or small population had the same weight in voting in Congress. It also took nine votes out of thirteen to approve legislation.

After the outbreak of the Revolutionary War, thirteen American colonies desired a government to displace and overturn the rule of British. So, they attempted to establish a governance of the Article of Confederation. As the first written constitution of the United States, the Articles of Confederation was not faultless. The Articles formed a weak central government and a loose confederation of sovereign states, leaving most of the power and independence with the state governments. Although the document gave Congress authority to make treaties, coin money and maintain army force, the central government still lacked of ability to implement these rules (Foner, 1991).

Without a lot of power in the central government but instead in the states, it caused a law to have to be passed throughout all of the states to be amended by the central government. With this, not a lot of laws were able to get amended. Another reason why the A.O.C. had to be replaced was how the states had the choice of paying taxes to congress or not doing so. This caused a shortage of money within the central government which made it difficult to pay off

The Articles of Confederation were adopted in 1781, and it is safe to say that everything went downhill from there. The government was unrestricting and ineffectual during that time and we are not allowed to blame them. Any government was needed, however, that government was not very operative. They had no provision for an Executive Branch or National Court System and were not able to force the states to do anything.

In document 3 George Washington says “ We have errors to correct. We have probably had too good an opinion of human nature in forming our confederation.” He also talks about how the Articles have many problems and how the government gave too much power to the people. The government had so little power, that they couldn’t control the states very well and the states pretty much became independent countries. Since their was no judicial system before the Constitution, the states could practically overturn any law they wanted because Congress could not enforce laws.

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.

How did the failure of the State of Franklin demonstrates the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation? First of all the, the congress was divided into 13 states and each state had one vote in congress. Congress handled many problems, like how to make the western lands made by the united states i the treaty of paris. Congress failed to solve problems between states due to taxes and boundaries. Most of the citizens felt like the government was too weak.

The structure of Congress was decided so that “Nine of thirteen states had to agree before a law could pass. If anyone wanted to amend the Articles to make the government more efficient, that took unanimous support. Many tried but weren’t able to secure all thirteen votes.” (iCivics packet). These harsh laws made it hard to pass any laws or make amendments to the Articles because it was near impossible to grasp the vast majority of votes.

The Shortcomings of the Articles of Confederation. The United States of America was formed under one banner by the Articles of confederation and was guided by it through the war and its aftermath. This document was the governance behind the unified states and the ordinances that quelled the states’ disputes over the Ohio River Valley. However, despite these great accomplishments the fledgling government under the Articles encountered problems that would bring its demise.

The primary economic reason the Articles of Confederation failed was no power to tax by the central government. The founders of the Articles of Confederation were so fearful of making another tyrannical government that they doomed themselves from the start; first by making the central government extremely weak and further did not allow that same governing body to tax for funding its on existence. “There was no president and no national court, and the powers of the national legislature were strictly limited. Most authority rested with the state legislatures because many leaders feared that a strong central government would become as tyrannical as British rule (Edwards, pg.37)”. Further, the legislature was one chamber with vote per state, amendments

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.

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.

The Articles of the Confederation was the first government constitution that the United States used, and, although there were strength like the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, there were major weaknesses of the Articles of the Confederation like the following: requiring 9 out of the 13 colonial votes from the representatives from different states to pass a law; having no executive and judicial branch; and the federal government being unable to impose tax revenue onto the states. Such flaws would eventually lead to the Constitution and the repeal of the articles, for the Constitution was a measure to fix the problems of the articles with a stronger government that allowed them to impose taxes and and implement new laws for a more effective government.

In one hand, the Articles of Confederation had a weak central government, differing form the strong central government in the Constitution. The Constitution’s government had a structure of three different branches; the legislative, executive, and judicial branch; unlike the Articles of Confederation that had no structure whatsoever. The Articles of Confederation had many problems like, the poor international trade, poor foreign relations and a weak economy in contrast to the Constitution that only had one problem, the struggle over the ratification. the Articles of Confederation achieved the Northwest Ordinance and the Northwest Territory and according to a history website, the Constitution achieved that we had a system of checks and balances, that we had a bill of rights, and, eventually, the survival of a bloody civil war intact. Lastly, the Constitution had three compromises: the Great Compromise, the Three-Fifths Compromise and the Slave Trade compromise.

These articles had discussed these problems but were not done so in depth. States still only had one vote in congress, regardless of how big or small the states were and congress did not have the power to tax or regulate trade. Furthermore, there was no branch of government to enforce any new laws