Essay On How Did The American Colonies Need To Form A National Government

The American colonies needed to form a national government to represent them and to bring all the colonies together to stand up against British Parliament. They did this by assembling the First Continental Congress with representatives from each colony. These representatives became the decision makers for all the people. Those decisions led to the battles of Concord and Lexington, which started the American Revolution in 1775. After these battles occurred, a feeling of a major showdown was brewing between the colonies and Britain. The whole idea of going to war with the super power of these times was just inconceivable for many Americans. Many of them had different opinions of the war or they didn’t know which way to lean. Of course, they were also faced with uncertainty going against their

Under the Articles of Confederation, the government endured successes and failures while trying to figure out the process of managing what it inherited. From the get go it lacked adequate powers to deal with interstate issues or to enforce its will on the states, and it had little stature in the eyes of the world (p. 153). Little stature because of the unpersuasiveness in keeping Great Britain to fulfilling its terms of the peace treaty and the inability to repay their debt at home and to foreign nations. The nation also faced a postwar depression, state-to-state taxation, and rioting of farmers because of increased taxes which led to Shay’s Rebellion. One the successful note was the inclusion and division of new land claims. The Confederation’s most important accomplishment was its resolution of controversies over the western lands and the passage of the Northwest Ordinance in 1787, which prohibited slavery throughout the territory (pp. 154-155). For the most part, it did keep the states in tact for the most important years of its