Pros And Cons Of The Articles Of Confederation

The Thirteen Colonies had now been free for a while and had grown into a nation with an abundance of land with a strong sense of responsibility. The United States of America was not like the other nations found throughout the world. It differed though its principals and morals, it radiated a sense of comfort and freedom that was hard to find anywhere else. However, it still lacked a strong government that could support such an important and developing nation. The Articles of Confederation had its achievements that supported it; however, it also had its great shortcomings that made the nation doubt its support to the large nation. Delegates then resorted in the creation of the Constitutional Convention that would draft a completely improved

The government lacked a stable economy and this led to the anxiousness of the military members, filled with thoughts that they wouldn’t be getting paid. This resulted in the threat of a military coup d’etat led by Alexander Hamilton and George Washington; however, Washington opened his eyes soon enough to realize that a coup d’etat was “both dishonorable and dangerous”. Later on, tensions between merchants and European (mostly British) trade arose and this led states to impose special taxes on vessels and goods brought into the United States. The downside to this was that the state actions were not unified which caused a loophole in the taxation “creating the impression that states were involved in commercial war with each other. This was a clear indication that the national government had to step in a regulate the inter-state trading system, something they weren’t fit to do, “calling for a stronger central government in the interest of uniform trade regulations”. Then the issue of inflation and the necessity of paper currency was brought to light stirring up more problems for the government. In 1785, the debaters believed and saw paper money as a means of easy repayment and prevented the need of “hard money” (silver and gold coins”; however, the farmers believed that the re instalment

There was a decisive split between the delegates to decide whether or not the trade of slave should still be allowed and instituted in this nation. Many of the delegates were slaveholders; however, there were also delegates that greatly opposed the idea. The defendants argued that the slaves were “vital to their states’ economies” because of the labor intensive cash crops their lands were in abundance of. On the other hand, the delegates that opposed slavery declared that the delivery of so much slaves into the nation “would bring forth the judgment of Heaven on the country” and that it was unrighteous. The Congress could not prohibit the trade but it ended up lifting the taxes on all imported Africans. Then the issue on if slaves should be considered population for taxation purposes but not for representation, meaning that their existence was only fought for when the nation benefited from it. They came to the conclusion that there should be a three-fifth ration for both taxation and representation when it came to the existence and acknowledgments of slaves as