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Constitution Surpass

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Why the Constitution Surpasses the Articles of Confederation
Today in history, the United States still obeys the Constitution. As everyone knows, it took bravery, courage, and bloodshed for the U.S. to keep and have this document. It took a great mind and a lot of trial and error to create the perfect form of government that was right and fair to all the people. However, the Constitution was not the “first Constitution” for America, the Articles of Confederation were. The Constitution surpasses the Articles of Confederation because of its policies, the reasons for the change, and what the writers did. “Despite being the central government, it was a loose confederation and most significant power was held by the individual states,” (Articles …show more content…

The Articles of Confederation say a plethora about the new government. It says that all the states need to form a league of friendship for defence, for the security of our rights, and for the general welfare. This will help fight back against our enemies, no matter what religion and trade. Also, each person has the same rights in all states and anyone who commits a crime and flees, shall be brought back to where the crime has occurred and have a trial and all legal documents will be shared among the states. Also, each state has one vote, Congress does not have the power to tax, Congress has no power over foreign commerce, and only state governments act directly on the people (Comparison of Constitution and Articles of Confederation). Congress also has the right to decide when the United States enters in any wars and treaties. This document was not only read by the Americans, but Canadians too. They also had to go by this document and if another country were to obey this document, it would have to be voted on by nine states (Articles of Confederation). The Articles of Confederation was not a perfect document, it had its weaknesses. Some of those weaknesses were that the national government could not force the people to obey the laws, the fact that it did not have the power to tax, Congress lacked a steady leadership, there was no national army, each state could issue its own money and put tariffs on trade, and Congress could not enforce laws. All of these issues are what made the government impuissant. The people were not satisfied with these flaws, and a rebellion broke out

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Shays Rebellion served as the final nail in the coffin for the Articles of Confederation. Although the Articles of Confederation was America's first national document, it came with many weaknesses. One of the major weaknesses was that the federal government was too weak and therefore could not enforce laws. The Continental Congress borrowed money to fight in both the Revolutionary War and the French and Indian War therefore were in debt.

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The Constitution was far superior to the Articles of Confederation because, the Articles of Confederation had fewer powers than the Constitution. Also, the Constitution created a balance in the government that the Articles of Confederation did not. Lastly, the Constitution took everyones thoughts into consideration. The Articles of Confederation did not include as many powers as the Constitution did. In the political cartoon it showed all the powers that the Constitution included that the Articles of Confederation discluded.

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The Articles of Confederation were, in short, a hot mess. Nothing could get done; the power dynamics among the thirteen states and the lack of power within the federal government to intervene led to utter disarray. In Document 3, George Washington admits in a letter that the Articles of Confederation were faulty in that they had “too good an opinion of human nature” and the leniency of the Articles had created “thirteen sovereign, independent, disunited States”. The hopes of creating a nation out of the thirteen colonies were destroyed with the Articles of Confederation, and unity could only be achieved through establishing a stronger national government. Document 1 goes farther in describing the perils of a nation split apart at the seams

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DBQ Essay The United States Constitution is a document that or founding fathers made in order to replace the failing Articles of Confederation (A of C). Under the Constitution, the current government and states don’t have the problems they faced when the A of C was in action. The Constitution was created in 1788, and held an idea that the whole nation was nervous about. This idea was a strong national government, and the Federalist assured the people that this new government would work. The framers of the Constitution decided to give more power to the Federal government rather than the state governments because the A of C had many problems, there was a need for the layout of new government, rights, and laws, and there was a need for the Federal

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But beyond these general features, the two constitutions could not be more different. These differences result from the fact that the two documents arose out of very different historical circumstances and for radically opposite complaints with the document each was meant to replace. With the U.S. Constitution, the problem with the earlier Articles of Confederation was that government was too decentralized and not powerful enough. The U.S. Constitution was designed to overcome these weaknesses and offer a degree of centralization and increased government power.

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Another silly thing all the founding fathers missed in the Articles is that the continental congress couldn’t enforce any laws. Which in so many words meant that congress could make all the laws they wanted but none of the states had to follow it due to the state government having much more power than the federal government. All the flaws in the Articles in confederation had made many things happen such as Shay’s rebellion and of course the adaptation of our new government which took ten months for the first nine states to ratify the rest of course came one by

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