Analysis Of The Articles Of Confederation Dbq

Ever heard of the Articles of Confederation? Thought not. That’s because within only 8 years of their ratification, they were gotten rid of. This was because, among other things, there were no courts, no national currency, and no taxes. So in May of 1787, 55 men gathered together in Philadelphia to come up with a better plan. They wanted a new form of government that gave power to the people, states, and the federal government. But most importantly, they wanted a government that would prevent tyranny. After 3½ months, they came up with the Constitution. It was meant to establish a Federalist government, spread out power between 3 different branches of government, put in place a system of checks and balances, and give states equal and proportionate

This is evident in document A, where it shows you a Venn diagram of which powers are given to the states and which powers are given to the federal government. For one thing, this shows how “a double security arises to the rights of the people”, which means that when the power is distributed between the states and the federal government, neither is able to gain absolute power over the country. Federalism also comes in handy by specifying what the states get to control and what the national government gets to control, which is meant to prevent conflict between the two powers. For example, the task of declaring war is meant for the national government only. If that wasn’t specified, there would likely be a lot of cases where states declared war, and the national government had to clean up the mess. By specifically saying that only the federal government can declare war, the Constitution prevents conflict between the states and the national

In document C, there is a very useful chart that shows one way that each of the three branches of government (executive, legislative, and judicial) holds a little bit of power over the others. This is good because it means that no one part of government is above or below the others in terms of power, and there is always a way for one of them to be “checked” if they are becoming too tyrannical. For example, the President (executive) can veto Congressional legislation, but Congress (legislative) can impeach the President if necessary. Being able to “check” each other is one of the ways that the Constitution kept one group from having too much power. Another benefit of having the checks and balances system is that none of the three branches is so far apart from each that they have no power over the others, but they are far enough apart to prevent the power from accumulating. After all, when power starts accumulating, that is one step closer to a tyrannical