The Articles of Confederation created a confederation in the United States. A confederation is a government in which the state government, not national, has dominant power. The leaders of the new nation feared that a strong, centralized government would lead to tyrannical monarchy like the British government. So the Founding Fathers established a confederation where there was no president nor Supreme court, and a Congress with limited power. But the existence of a weak congress led to an ineffective national government. The Congress lacked power to enforce taxes on states, and thus had difficulty in maintaining an army and navy, and couldn 't regulate commerce.