How Did The Articles Of Confederation Lead To The American Revolution

The Articles of Confederation were a major improvement over the past government of England, in which the power only belongs to a few people, the king and parliament. The Articles of Confederation allowed each individual state to have its own power. Congress could not require any state to pay taxes, nor could they require to build a national army. Preventing tyranny was a major idea and a major goal that the Articles of Confederation produced. One other improvement that the Articles of Confederation instituted was the idea of not only reducing the power of the king, but increasing the power of the people. The people were “fed up” with all of their decisions being made by the central government, and as a result, The Articles of Confederation

One factor that caused this was the fact that they gave the states too much power, hence, the governmental balance between the two ways to govern the people were offset. This did not seem like a problem at first for the government, but this was monumentally influential. First of all, the states were not completely one country, but 13 individual states. This was not very evident until a certain event in which it would prove helpful to have a national army. This event was called the Shay’s rebellion. During Shay’s rebellion, a person who fought in the revolution was unhappy with the government and thought that his rights were not being met. As a result, he had the right to start an uprising, which was a major problem for the government. They were not allowed to raise an army, and could have prevented the situation if they did. The country would have more trouble if another nation attacked, as they would have a much larger and more advanced military than a nation that is just starting out. Although the issue regarding military was a large factor in the failure of the Articles of Confederation, there was something that was much more important to the rejection of this document. The likelihood of a quarrel between the new states and another country is unlikely, as they did not have much power or land, but it was extremely likely that the laws would need to be changed. When the Articles of Confederation were instituted, in order to execute any tasks, there would have to be a super majority, meaning that at least 75% or more had to agree. To change something major, 100% would have to agree. This comes into play during the Annapolis convention, an important meeting for the government. Unfortunately, only 12 states even showed up to the convention; Rhode Island didn’t bother coming for some