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How Did The Rise And Fall Of The Articles Of Confederation

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Maggie Flinn Shannon Oles US & MA Government & Civic Life 17 February 2023 The Rise and Fall of The Articles of Confederation Nearly all Americans know of the United States Constitution, our treasured governing document that has been in effect for over 200 years. Although, not all are aware that the Constitution was not the first document to be used to direct our nation. The predecessor to the Constitution lasted around 10 years, but was eventually scrapped and remade. What was this original plan for the government, and why did it fail? After the Revolutionary War was over and the colonies declared their independence from Great Britain in 1776, they knew they needed a document that would unify the colonies into a new nation under a governing …show more content…

The structure of Congress was decided so that “Nine of thirteen states had to agree before a law could pass. If anyone wanted to amend the Articles to make the government more efficient, that took unanimous support. Many tried but weren’t able to secure all thirteen votes.” (iCivics packet). These harsh laws made it hard to pass any laws or make amendments to the Articles because it was near impossible to grasp the vast majority of votes. This led to hardly any improvements being made upon the system of government, and just caused the states to remain in a nonprogressive condition. The voting rules were too limiting to actually achieve anything, which stopped the colonies from being able to enhance their confederacy. Along with this, the national government had no way to enforce the laws they …show more content…

However, several problems arose from this system, which caused the Articles of Confederation to be discarded and replaced with a superior document. To balance the power between the states and the national government, the authors replaced the weak central government with a much stronger one that used checks and balances to equalize their three separate branches. They also made several changes to the way the government operates. Requiring the majority of votes was an inconvenience to the states and Congress, so the Founding Fathers remodeled the document in order to create a more lawful system. They also added an executive branch because it was something the country realized was necessary in order to enforce laws and make quicker decisions. By making these alterations to the format of government, the nation hoped to improve how they operated the country as well as giving the citizens more personal

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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

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In 1787, the Founding Fathers met in Philadelphia to try to readjust the Articles of Confederation. They ended up making a new Constitution, which created a stronger central government. The Constitution gave Congress the power to tax, and it also made the states required to follow Congress’s decisions. This made the government much more effective, but it also made it more

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