The Articles of Confederation
The Articles of Confederation are said to be weak and because of their weakness, it is sometimes assumed that they were also unpopular. Does the weakness of the Articles directly correlate with how popular or unpopular they were in the United States? Created in 1778, the Articles of Confederation became the United States of America’s first constitution after gaining independence from Britain in 1776. The Articles established a national government under the legislation of the Continental Congress, made up of legislatures from each state. The Articles declared that the states would remain sovereign and that all powers not given to Congress, by the Articles of Confederation, were automatically delegated to the States.
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The Articles were weak because it created strong state governments, but it also created a very weak national government. The national government was seen as weak because it didn’t have the power to enforce laws, due to the lack of an executive branch. The national government t was also week because it did not have strong and steady leadership. One of the first weaknesses is Article II in which it declares, “Each State retains it sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every power, jurisdiction and right, which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States Congress assembled” (Tindall and Shi A66). This means, the states are free to govern themselves and all powers not given to Congress by the Articles of Confederation belong to the States. Article II quickly caused problems for the Congress because it had little authority over the sovereign states in terms of enforcing laws. Another weakness was, Congress didn’t have the power to tax. For example, Congress could send an invoice saying that a state needs to pay taxes, but the state could essentially just rip up the invoice and refuse to pay because Congress didn’t have the power to collect