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Compare And Contrast The Articles Of Confederation

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After the Revolutionary War, Americans desperately needed a new form of government. While most states had already established a constitution, there was no framework for a national government. Eventually, states agreed to join in a loose union. This resulted in the creation of the Articles of Confederation, which was adopted on November 15, 1777. Due to the colonists’ negative experiences with a monarchy during the revolution, they intentionally wrote the Articles of Confederation so that states could maintain their sovereignty. In other words, although a central government existed in the form of Congress, the states would retain most of their power. The colonists felt that this would prevent a monarchy or tyranny from forming again. However, …show more content…

The Articles required nine out of the thirteen states’ approval in creating new laws and agreement from all states to make changes in the Articles. Taking into account the differences between them, gaining approval from all thirteen states was a challenge. For one, states had drastically different needs depending on their location. Northern states were more industrial and relied on commerce and businesses such as fishing. Hence, they favored giving Congress more power to control trade. However, southern states, who were more agricultural, disagreed, fearing that Congress would tax their exports and reduce profits. Their differing views would make it difficult to come to a consensus. Besides that, each state had two to seven representatives based on size and only one vote in Congress. Larger states with more representatives had difficulty agreeing on how to cast their vote and argued that they should have more votes because of their larger population. In contrast, smaller states believed the opposite; if representation was based on size, then smaller states would not have an equal voice in Congress. Hence, they favored giving each state one vote, regardless of size. Without a doubt, the Articles of Confederation led to more divisions between states, and consequently, the government was inefficient in making

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Following the American secession from Britain in 1776, the colonies needed to implement a form of self-governance. In the early years of the Revolutionary War, the colonies drafted the Articles of Confederation, which outlined an agreement to loosely ally the states. At the time, American colonists were extremely wary of strong central governments. Thus, under the Articles, the United States maintained a weak central government with strong state governments. With this situation in place, the success of the U.S. government was mixed.

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Before the Independent War, each state already had its own laws. Speaking from a certain perspective, each state could be seen as an independent country. After America won its independence from the Great Britain in the Revolutionary War, the new country needed a mechanism to unify the thirteen states to form a government. The Articles of Confederation was the first national constitution that was acknowledged by the thirteen American states that was submitted to the Second continental Congress on July 12, 1776. It was sought to be the solution to group the thirteen states to be a country.

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Without an executive branch and president, the government would rely on its perpetual union to resolve political affairs. This however lead to much disorder and a lack of unanimity within the Confederation, as establishing new legislature and administering tariffs would require a consensus of nine of the thirteen colonies. Receiving votes from the colonies happened to also be flawed, as each colony would be represented with one vote, so that “some sixty-eight Rhode Islanders had the same voice as more than ten times that many Virginians” (Kennedy, Cohen 164). This was a nonsensical voting system and led to much of the colonies being misrepresented in Congress. Much disagreement and bitterness was given by the states when deciding how to divide the Trans-Allegheny land gained from the war; this was solved by the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 which founded several new states and provided them with educational “sections” allowing for a remarkable success of the new states, and this can also be noted as one of the few successes which originated from the

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er, the Articles placed the power in the hands of the state, which led to economic troubles; but it also led to leadership shortfall. The fact that there was no independent judiciary, no leader of foreign affairs, and an inability to deal with internal and external threats made, caused a lot of problems for America. Finally, the Articles of Confederation was ineffective in making a set of rules that made legislating under this structure inefficient. Each state had one vote, therefore, states with a large population or small population had the same weight in voting in Congress. It also took nine votes out of thirteen to approve legislation.

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But many problem still challenged this new nation. After the Article of Confederation failing due to the weakness of the central government, the different states had to develop a new a form of government. But the different states did not seem to be agreeing on one single plan, the bigger states want the government to work in their favor, and the smaller states wanted equal representation in the government despite of size, wealth and population. All the delegates from the different states had to work together and make many different compromised to all agree one a well-drafted constitution. However, the ratification of this Constitution still faced many issues, some states wanted more individual state power and rights granted to individual American citizens.

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Under the Articles of Confederation, each of the thirteen colonies was represented in Congress with one vote. When the framers created the Constitution, there were discussions surrounding whether each state should have votes proportional to the state’s population or should each state have equal representation. The larger states favored the Virginia Plan (which was based on population) because this would give them greater control in Congress. The smaller states were concerned about losing power in Congress so they supported the New Jersey Plan (which gave each state equal representation). After much debate over the two plans, a compromise was adopted that created a bicameral Congress.

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With alot going on during the creation of the Articles of Confederation, Due to the on going effects and changes of the American Revolution. The colonies had been in search to create a more centralized government. Since most colonies had taken more care of their own individual interests, it had been much easier to agree upon and form state institutions. Rather than focusing on the importance of the growth of a strong united but yet equally independent structure for their own national gorvernment.

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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.

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Federalism Compare state sovereignty under the Articles of Confederation and under the Constitution. States were sovereign under the Articles of the Confederation although they shared no power under the constitution. It is the states that were supreme under the Articles of Confederation that led to the creation of a government that had a weaker national government. The executive arm of the government was not independent, and there were no federal courts since the state courts enacted all the laws (Brest, p.58). Also, neither did the Congress have the taxing power nor did it have the power to control interstate or foreign commerce.

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The states being able to act so independently led to another major flaw of the document, which was that the states had to agree unanimously to an amendment. Each state acting independently mimicked a country full of its own countries. “Then it would be more difficult for a majority ‘to discover their own strength and to act in unison with each other’” as explained by James Madison, a Founding Father. So, to get a proper modification of the Confederation 13 states had to agree and this did not happen. States had their own currencies, taxes, and way of conducting government.

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During the Revolutionary War, Congress developed the first constitution of the United States, known as the Articles of Confederation. The Articles of Confederation was drafted in 1776 and 1777 and was then approved by the states in 1781. Although the articles of confederation were weak, it managed to survive the war years. In 1787, a convention was held to rewrite the Articles since the resulting government was weak, that’s when the U.S Constitution was written. The powers given to the federal government in the U.S constitution and the Articles of Confederation differ.

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The Articles did not have the binding power that the US government has today, the colonies were not a tight knit group of united in the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness, the Articles created a “firm league of friendship.” Each state was allowed to keep its sovereignty, rights, independence, rights, and etcetera. If each State is allowed to act as an individual and keep all of their freedom it is near impossible to expect thirteen self-serving states to unite under one government.

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Having a weak central government created a whole new set of problems. After analyzing the Articles of Confederation the weaknesses outnumbered the strengths. Such as states not having to obey the laws and ignore taxations because they had no authority to enforce them. Congress did not have the power to collect taxes from the each of the states, that was one major weakness especially during the Revolutionary War because instead of getting the money they had to ask the states for money and the states said no. At that point the government should have put their foot down and enforced a new law, their troops were fighting for their freedom and these people didn’t care.

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Under the A.o.C. 9/13 states had to be in agreement for a law to pass which was almost impossible so the constitution made it possible to pass laws. The constitution also granted the central government the ability to raise an army and declare war. A big focus of the constitution was to make it amenable and adaptable for an up and coming country which wasn’t possible with the articles of

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In 1776, the United States was in the midst of a revolution. They fought to free themselves from Britain’s tight control. The war was disorganized because the United States had no national government to manage it. Thus, in 1777, the Articles of Confederation were adopted.

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