DeVry University The road that lead to the Constitution was not an easy road. There were debates, compromise, and many hours spent establishing the Constitution that is still in place today. The Articles of Confederation is the beginning of that road. The Articles of Confederation had its strengths but the weaknesses outweighed the strengths. This lead to the writing of the constitution. The first weakness of the Articles of the confederation is that the federal government had very little power over the state government. This was true when it came to the federal government requesting med for war efforts, resources but was epically true when it came to the financial side. Although the federal government could request these things form the states they could not force them to do so. (U.S. History Pre-Columbian to the new Millennium, n.d.) This lead to the Federal government printing currency, which then led to inflation. One of the major events that led to the writing of the Constitution was during Shay’s Rebellion. The Federal government was powerless and fell to the state militia this is when the need for a stronger …show more content…
Some of the strengths of the Constitution include; The federal government had more power than before when under the Articles of Confederation. The Government was also divided up into branches. The constitution also introduced the electoral college; which was votes based on population instead of one state one vote. It made executive power stronger. According to (Keene, Cornell, O’Donnell, 2011, pg. 146) “Although executive power under the Articles of Confederation had been weak, the new president could veto legislation, negotiate treaties, and issue pardons.” The weaknesses of the constitution were mostly based on opinion. Depending on your political stance at that time. The Anti-Federalists who opposed the constitution the most disagreed with a strong central government. The compromise
Shays Rebellion served as the final nail in the coffin for the Articles of Confederation. Although the Articles of Confederation was America's first national document, it came with many weaknesses. One of the major weaknesses was that the federal government was too weak and therefore could not enforce laws. The Continental Congress borrowed money to fight in both the Revolutionary War and the French and Indian War therefore were in debt.
The confederation type of government set up by the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union was coming up short. The Government set up couldn't assemble a majority in the elected congress. The solidarity of the country had been distressfully tried under the Articles of Confederation. While the Constitution was not flawless, it made a more grounded focal government that incorporated a Congress with the power to tax, a President who would be as the country's central power. It would also have a national court framework.
The structure and powers of the federal government changed under the Constitution as compared to the Articles of Confederation. Many people, known as the anti-Federalists, opposed these changes while on the contrary, many people, known as the Federalists, supported them. The framework and function of the federal government changed drastically under the Constitution. The federal government was much stronger under the Constitution because it was given the power to run the states under more unified control.
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.
After the Articles of Confederation failed because they failed to give enough power to the national government and congress, our founding father’s needed to reflect on its flaws for a new system to be set in place. Their new creation, our Constitution, was then set into place, and was created from a basis of the Articles of Confederation. The Articles of Confederation directly influence the Constitution by its failure by changing some of the responsibilities of the federal and state governments. The Articles of Confederation gave too much power to the states, and the Constitution changed that.
The Articles of Confederation was a significant step toward national unity. Most American historians said that the Articles of Confederation were insignificant because of the subsidiary position occupied by the central government. The new states needed a central government. Congress had little power to impose upon the states. They could not regulate taxes, and this led to states taxing other states.
This made them create the law that to pass any amendments, or to change any, it needed to have 2/3 of congress to vote on it and 3/4 of the states approval, unlike when they had the articles of confederation. The Articles of Confederation had to have all the states agree on an amendment. The only problem with this was that the states had different opinions and views, which resulted in nothing changing.
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 put into effect to form some semblance of a central government, to keep peace between the states and to keep individual states from conducting foreign diplomacy on their own. Unfortunately the articles were flawed and gave the existing government little to no power. Federalism was the number one weakness of the Articles of Confederation. Without a separation of powers this type of government was bound to fail. Levying taxes was a much needed change to the Articles of Confederation.
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 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 problem was that the existing government, under the Articles of Confederation, just wasn't doing the job. It was too weak. The challenge was to create a strong central government without letting anyone, person, or group of people, get too much power. The Constitution guarded against tyranny in ways by having Federalism, Separation of Powers, and Checks and Balances treated
These authorities that the national government should have, were all up to the states to decide under the Articles. With the taking away some of the states rights in the Constitution, Anti-federalists feared that this would leave the states too weak, resulting in more problems. Under the new Constitution, many powers that were now in the government 's hands are: the power to levy and collect taxes, the power to regulate interstate commerce, the government set up a national court system consisting of district, circuit, and a supreme court, the government could enforce laws, there was now a house based on population, and a senate based on equal representation (two votes per state), to amend the Constitution, a ⅔ vote of Congress was needed, and a ¾ vote of the states were needed, and a majority rule was needed to pass bills. These new powers and abilities of the national government helped to create a strong, new
The new government, the Constitution, is now able to enforces taxes, which allowed money to come in and the government was able to pay off their debt. One other weakness of the articles was that it gave all power to only one house of representative from each state, the constitution try to solve this matter that creating three separate branches of power, the Legislative branch, Executive branch, and the Judiciary branch, allowing the power to be more divided. Representation was another problem in under the Articles of Confederation because a big state like Massachusetts and a small state like New Jersey both have the same amount of representatives, the Constitution made a compromise by forming two house in Congress the Senate, where each state get equal representation, and the House of Representatives, where each state is represented by the population of the state. The Constitution also fixed the problem of passing a law; under the Articles of Confederation, laws can only be passed if 9 out of 13 representatives agrees on the law because of this not much laws were passed, now under the Constitution only 51 percent of the votes to pass the law. From this readers can infer that the Constitution fixed many of the defects in the Articles
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.