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Articles Of Confederation Argumentative Essay

640 Words3 Pages

The Articles of Confederation were written on November 15, 1777 when the, “Constitutional Congress met to try and come up with a framework or constitution for a new government,” as stated in the textbook Keeping the Republic by Barbour and Wright. The goal was to, “establish a ‘firm league of friendship among thirteen American states, but they did not empower a central government to act effectively on behalf of those states,” argued by Barbour and Wright, and they were not officially in effect until 1781. The Articles of Confederation started off as the first framework of government for the United States in 1781. It served as a stepping stone for the American government in order to create the Constitution.

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Although there were some positives of the Articles, such as the Northwest Ordinance, which created new states in the Union, there were also some negatives, such how the, "Articles had limited powers: it had no power to tax, it could not compel the states to contribute to financing its operations," as explained by historian Jon Gjerde. Taxes are meant to fund the development or building of something that will help the country.The Articles of Confederation stated that the government would ask for a voluntary donation from the states, who would pay 1/4 of the times that they were supposed to, while the government couldn’t enforce this policy. If this continued, then America would have little to no money to fund anything expensive, such as a war or an exploration of land. Another flaw with the Articles of Confederation, was that, "It had no executive branch and no separate judiciary; instead, it relied on a legislature in which each state had equal representation”. When I read this statement, I thought that it was a fair law, because even though there was only one branch of government, each state had an equal representation, which meant that small states such as New Jersey would have the same amount of power as large states, such as Virginia. This quote made me think about checks and balances, which help watch the other government branches

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The Articles of Confederation were adopted in 1777 by the Continental Congress and in its basic sense, acted as a place-holder government which was much like the one already in place pre-revolution. It turned out to be quite weak due to lack of power when it came to the regulation of trade, draft troops, and taxes. When suggestion of ratification to the Articles of Confederation arose, all thirteen states had to agree to do so. However, there were vast disagreements between the smaller states and the larger ones. The smaller states won the disagreements.

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The Articles of Confederation were, in short, a hot mess. Nothing could get done; the power dynamics among the thirteen states and the lack of power within the federal government to intervene led to utter disarray. In Document 3, George Washington admits in a letter that the Articles of Confederation were faulty in that they had “too good an opinion of human nature” and the leniency of the Articles had created “thirteen sovereign, independent, disunited States”. The hopes of creating a nation out of the thirteen colonies were destroyed with the Articles of Confederation, and unity could only be achieved through establishing a stronger national government. Document 1 goes farther in describing the perils of a nation split apart at the seams

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Answer: The Articles of Confederation was destined to fail because allowing the states to mainly govern themselves left the central government at the mercy of each state. The central government had the power to control the militia but without the power to draft or tax citizens, it left the government with a weak militia and no money to fund it. That allowed the states to mainly look out for the elite, the wealthy and leave the rest to fend for themselves. After all the Articles of Confederation was written by the wealthy white man to prevent a strong central government from ruling over the states after it detached itself from England. In order to give themselves more power they also took away the possibility for commerce between states and

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As a new republic, we cannot afford to make the same mistake twice when establishing the law of the land for our government. The weaknesses and flaws in the Articles of Confederation were evident when Shay’s rebellion arose not long ago in Massachusetts. How do we protect the law-abiding citizen from enemies, both foreign and domestic, who seek to disrupt the Liberty of the United States and jeopardize our security? The Constitution of the United States Article 1, Section 8, Clause 12 state, “The Congress shall have Power To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years.” We the people of the United States must ratify the Constitution in order to create a Standing Army that provide security against both internal and external threats of America.

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I am here to persuade you to vote for the proper and right representatives for our nation, but first, let me say that the Constitution is not meant to mistreat us. It is not meant to oppress us, but it is a way for us to unite, and at the same time have a balance of power. To survive as a respected nation, it requires the transfer of important, though limited, powers to a central government, which can be done without destroying the identity or autonomy of separate states. I know that none of us wants to replace an oppressive monarchy with another unrestrained regime. It is time to stop absurd competition between states that the Articles of Confederation never ceased because of its instability and disorganization.

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