Confederation Problems

Many believed that the adoption of the union had alleviated all problems surrounding independence but later realized that it was crumbling right before their eyes. Following the Declaration of Independence, Continental Congress became aware that it was a necessity to form a national government. During the discussion for a new government, many problems were encountered. One of the issues that was faced dealt with the question as to whether representation and voting would be would be portioned out or would it be done by each state. This caused some problems and delays for the constitution but after Philadelphia had been captured by Britain, this became a matter of urgency. After the capture of Philadelphia, the Articles of Confederation were

“ Given their fears of strong governmental and hostility to taxation ,the Articles of confederation, also known as the weak constitution that was created by Confederation Congress, did not empower the new central government to tax Americans.” ( Keene, Cornell & 0’Connor, 2013) Due to this, the government of the United States was faced with financial problems, created by shortages of funds. In addition to funding issues, there were many other problems that plagued the Confederation. One being that it lacked a federal court system. The Articles of Confederation had no provision to regulate interstate trade and no executives with power. There was no control of trade between states, complicated system of arbitration, Sovereignty resides in states, nine of thirteen votes were needed to approve legislation compared to the Constitution. Congress was empowered with the right to levy taxes on individuals. Congress had the authority to increase the amount of soldiers needed in an army to deal with military situations, Interstate commerce was controlled by Congress and Federal court systems were empowered to handle disputes. When the Constitutional Convention became deadlocked, Sherman proposed a system. This system was known as the Great Compromise. This was a very important matter because the larger states felt that they should have bigger and better representation than the smaller states did. Smaller states felt that this would was not fair and that all states, regardless of population should be represented equally. The Great Compromise called for adjustments to be made in the house proposing that legislature have two houses.. Sherman's compromise was adopted on July 16, 1787. One being The House of Representatives , to support the larger states and another being the Senate , which