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Comparison of articles of confederation and constitution
Article of confederation vs constitution
Comparison of articles of confederation and constitution
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In the summer of 1787, the new government of the United States of America realized that there was a problem with their current government. Many parts of the constitution guards against tyranny because the new constitution has checks and balances, the separation of powers and federalism. The original problem that was called to the attention of the old government was the articles of confederation were very weak, and they needed to create a strong central government. According to document A, a quote by James Madison states, “The different governments will control each other, at the same time that each will controlled by itself.” The central and state government will work together, which shows federalism.
The Constitution of the United States, a document setting up America’s government system. When we broke away from the big, bad king of England after the revolutionary war, we strived to create a government unlike the tyranny we had before, a democracy. The Articles of Confederation were created, giving the states more power then the central government. It got the US nowhere, many problems arised, each state which different money systems, different tax laws, and a central government that had no power over the states. Many people knew this government was not working, and most likely would not last long, so a group of individuals (rich white males) came together to discuss a new form of government, around the idea of federalism.
The problem was that the existing government, under the Articles of Confederation wasn't doing the job. It was too weak. There overall goal was to create a strong-central government without letting anyone gaining much power. Federalism Federalism is a compound republic, meaning it is made up of two governments. It is between two distinct governments which are subdivided into separate departments.
In the late 1700’s, it was America’s goal to create a republic that had a representative government that was based upon the approval of the people. Unfortunately, the people feared a strong central government because of the previous trouble the colonies had when they were ruled by Britain. They were always being unfairly taxed and had very few rights. In order to avoid this, a very weak government was developed that seemed to satisfy the people, but would not satisfy the well being of the country. It wasn’t until Shay’s rebellion which brought light to the fact that the Articles of Confederation were not going to cut it, so the Constitutional Convention was created and convened to find an alternative solution which was the creation of the Constitution.
This was the first error the delegates at the Constitutional Convention hoped to fix with the Constitution. In JAmes MAdison’s Federalist Paper #51, he explains that the power the people of the nation grants its government be divided into two separate government's, meaning state and federal, to ensure a “double security” on the people’s rights. This idea was referred to as federalism (Doc A). This division of power was set up in a way that both governments had specific powers that the other had no control over, which prevented either one form gaining all power. Tyranny was further prevented by both state and central governments sharing some powers, keeping each other in
These authorities that the national government should have, were all up to the states to decide under the Articles. With the taking away some of the states rights in the Constitution, Anti-federalists feared that this would leave the states too weak, resulting in more problems. Under the new Constitution, many powers that were now in the government 's hands are: the power to levy and collect taxes, the power to regulate interstate commerce, the government set up a national court system consisting of district, circuit, and a supreme court, the government could enforce laws, there was now a house based on population, and a senate based on equal representation (two votes per state), to amend the Constitution, a ⅔ vote of Congress was needed, and a ¾ vote of the states were needed, and a majority rule was needed to pass bills. These new powers and abilities of the national government helped to create a strong, new
The framers of the United States constitution decided to give more power to the federal government than the state government, the framers did this because they didn’t want to create a government with tyranny in it, they also did this to create new ideas for the states. The framers did this because they simply didn’t want the government to have complete control over the people, instead the framers wanted to have the people to have a government just not a complete power one. The framers wanted the people to be able to choose what kind of government they had, what kind of leader they had, they wanted to the people to have a choice. Some problems that the articles of confederation had is that that the articles limited the government significantly.
Many people today believe that the federal government has too much power, but can you imagine living in a time where the national government had too little power? The United States claimed its independence from Great Britain in July, 1776. And so it was up to the now free colonists to create their new nation’s government. In fear of living under another tyrant, the Americans wanted to set up a government that would be equally just to all citizens. The Articles of Confederation became our first national constitution in November, 1777.
When the colonists were still with Great Britain, King George III misused his power. As a result, colonists wrote the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, to the king, to state their separation from Great Britain, to form a new country, the United States of America. After creating a new country, Americans wrote the Articles of Confederation in the year 1777, which they purposely weakened central government, so the abuse of power, wouldn’t exist. This meant the states had all the power. Although this structure of government seemed great, the creators of the Articles quickly realized that with no central government, states weren’t united because they were busy on increasing the growth of only their state.
Following the Revolutionary War, America had just gained independance from Great Britain and needed to form a new government. The Articles of Confederation were established as an attempt to create a government that was unlike Britain’s. Unfortunately, the Articles of Confederation had several weaknesses. When in the process of repairing those weaknesses, the Federalists and the Anti-federalists formed. The Articles of Confederation were very weak as well as useless to America and because of this, the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists could not agree on a new type of government.
Believe it or not, the Constitution was not America 's first form of government. Our country started out with the Articles of Confederation, which were...shall we say... less than perfect. They gave the states much more power than the central government, due to a pervasive fear of strong central governments. This fear stemmed from the reign of the tyrannical King George III, and the founding fathers did not want to give their country the ability to establish another monarchy. In the Articles of Confederation, the central government had no power to tax, regulate trade or commerce, enforce laws, settle disputes between states.
The federal government dealt with the powers enumerated in the Constitution, foreign policy fostering commerce, and national defense. Instead,
The Articles of Confederation gave too much power to the states and too little to nothing to the federal government; hence the conflicts between the states. We are one nation and we should not be divided. It is time for a new balance, and it will be a achieved by the help of the Constitution, a federal act. We, Americans, will finally be given the voice that will be heard, acts that we deserve, and if we choose the
This country was founded with the attempt to separate the federal government and the state government, known as federalism. The goal of federalism is to divide the power of state and federal governments, protect the rights of the state, and prevent tyranny of the majority. Throughout the years, federalism turned into dual federalism where the state and federal government were completely independent of each other and only shared a dependency on the Constitution. The united states suppressing now to cooperative federalism, the national government has assumed even more power, overruling the states with Supreme Court decisions and actions, and executive Orders. Furthermore, the Federal government should grant their state governments more power, due to the connection the state governments hold with their local people.
The enumerated powers are stated directly in the United States Constitution but the implied and reserved powers are not. Enumerated and implied powers are for the federal government but the reserved powers are not. The reserved powers are granted to state governments. Furthermore, enumerated powers and reserved powers are written down and could be found easily. The implied powers are different because they are not written down in an amendment or the
