Before the Constitution, the United States had the Articles of Confederation. This pre-constitutional government was based off the experiences the colonists had with the King of England. Because of the tyrant nature of the king, the colonists built a government with Strong states, but a weak central government. This resulted in numerous flaws throughout the nation, for example, the government could tax the people or raise an army. Theses flaws also created a rift within the nation forming two parties: the Federalists and the Anti Federalist. It took a few compromises for the two parties to agree on a new constitution. Firstly, there was many problems with the Articles of Confederation. One major problem was the states had too much power (Document 2). The central was too weak to control the states, and in some ways this is exactly what the colonists wanted. But, because the national government was so weak it could not collect taxes to run the nation. Also, because the nation had no power over taxes, it could not raise an army. Without an army, the nation had no means of defense and could not fend off attacks from neighboring nations. Another problem the Articles of Confederation had was the lack of a national court …show more content…
The Federalists favored a strong central government and a subordinate state government. They also trusted that a well-educated group of elected officials would act in the best interest of the nation (Document 3). However the Anti Federalists favored the Articles of Confederation, and the weak central government that came with them. Because of their experiences with the brutal King of England, the colonists feared the national government would become too powerful and begin discrediting the individual rights of the colonists. Although the Federalists succeeded in ratifying the Constitution, a Bill of Rights was implemented as a safeguard against
The two most important problems which made the Articles of the Confederation a poor form of government stemmed from their lack of power; specifically their lack of power to collect taxes and lack of power to raise an army. These issues led to the creation of the Constitution and in turn led to more issues due to differences between Federalists and Antifederalists. To combat the new come issues, compromises were struck between the given groups within the government. These compromises were called the Great Compromise and the Three/Fifths Compromise.
In addition, as the states did not want to give too much power to a central authority, the Articles of Confederation left the central government very weak to govern effectively. Under these articles, the Congress did not have the authority to levy taxes or regulate the business and trade. The Congress depended on the contributions of the states, which did not always pay. As a result, Congress did not have money to operate fluently.
First, there were a lot of problems with the Articles of Confederation. The Articles were not at all powerful and were not good for America. The US didn’t have a lot of money and they barely had any power. Under the Articles, the state possessed more power than the federal government.
At the Constitutional Convention, our founding fathers met to reconstruct the Articles of Confederation, not knowing that they would create the United States Constitution, an entire new format of government. They wanted to create a government that was powerful yet restricted in certain ways, in order to create equal representation for all people. Three main compromises were made at the Constitutional Convention. These compromises were The Great Compromise, the Three-Fifths Compromise, and the addition of the Bill of Rights.
The articles of the confederation was very weak plan of government but they ended up fixing it in the end. States were given most power and few powers were given to the national government. The laws were difficult to pass because only 9 out of the 13 states agreed. Congress had no power to collect taxes,regulate trade, to coin money,and had no power to create an army. There was no president or executive branch.
“Congress didn 't have power to create tax, draft troops, stop states from printing their own money, they couldn 't make tariffs, and there was no chief executive” (Enotes Martin Murphey) those were some flaws in the Articles of Confederation, Congress had limited power making the United States weak. For those following reasons the
The Articles of Confederation created a confederation. The National Government consisted of a single legislative body, called Congress. The National Government had certain powers for the Articles of Confederation. At first there was no judicial or executive branch under the Articles. Problems came about because the government under the Articles of Confederation didn 't have enough power.
In 1777, the Continental Congress completed the first written American constitution, the Articles of Confederation. The Articles of Confederation was created to form an alliance between the 13 colonies. It was working out well in the beginning until serious problems started to appear. Those were money problems and most importantly, a weak government. One issue the Articles of Confederation had, was the major money issues inflicted upon the union which harmed the coherency of our country.
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.
Articles of Confederation Essay The Articles of Confederation was the original United States Constitution. The articles were written and agreed on by delegates of the states, but it still did not do it’s job and many people were frustrated with it. They chose this as their first system of government to keep the states together as a nation, but let the states have their own equal governments. After just ending a war against Britain, the United States knew they could not have a national government that was too strong, as the British had.
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 Constitutions’ Predecessor The United States of America had not always had a strong Constitution to govern the people. No, in fact, it was quite the opposite. In 1781, six years before our current Constitution was ratified, the United States had a different set of guidelines entirely called the Articles of Confederation. The Articles of Confederation were a short lived, ineffective rough draft version of the constitution we have now. With the articles calling the shots each state that was a part of the confederation was fully independent and had a frail central government.
The backbone of American Government was not gathered particles of dust and stars. In the beginning, we had our forefathers. Government did not occur naturally, it was invented by like minded individuals who were tasked with a very important mission: Create and maintain a functional government over thirteen states (at the time). Had it not been for the Federalists, we would not have the successful system we have today. Federalists (also known as nationalists) believed in a strong, central source of government.
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.
The Articles of Confederation was structured to give the majority power to the States while limiting the involvement of Government. The federal government was bestowed with the responsibility of mutual defense for the states and to “secure the blessings of liberty.” Government was supposed to be able to pass acts, however, each state was only permitted one representative regardless of that state’s population and votes needed to be unanimous for an act to pass. The power of the central government was vague and nearly unenforceable. Without a judicial system the federal government was unable to enforce penalties or consequences and without the ability to collect tax they could not finance the government meetings let alone the military to defend