Strengths And Weaknesses Of The Articles Of Confederation
Following the American secession from Britain in 1776, the colonies needed to implement a form of self-governance. In the early years of the Revolutionary War, the colonies drafted the Articles of Confederation, which outlined an agreement to loosely ally the states. At the time, American colonists were extremely wary of strong central governments. Thus, under the Articles, the United States maintained a weak central government with strong state governments. With this situation in place, the success of the U.S. government was mixed.
Articles of Confederation was the written document that established the functions of the national government of the United States after it declared independence from Great Britain.” The Articles were needed after the United States won war. There was no unity among the country. They used the Articles as their set of rules. There were many important people that had to do with the constitution.
At this convention twelve of the thirteen (Rhode Island declined to participate) states sent delegates. They could all agree that Congress should have the power to regulate interstate/ international commerce and that Congress should have the power to tax. But while at the convention not everything ran so smoothly, two plans arose; the Virginia Plan and the New Jersey Plan. The Virginia Plan based the quantity of representatives/senators on the state’s populace and the New Jersey Plan wanted equal representation regardless of population. To settle this issue, they came up with the Great Compromise which stated the House of Representatives would be based on the state’s populace and the Senate would be equal for all states regardless of population.
The absence of power given to the Continental Congress debilitated the national government. The Articles enabled Congress to affirm laws, yet no ability to apply those laws. In the event that a state did not help a government law, that state can simply neglect it. Congress had no ability to force taxes or direct exchange. Without a government court framework or an official leader, there would be no real way to implement these laws.
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.
A perpetual, age old question: where does the power go? The debate of whether certain rights belong to the state or the federal government has been argued in America since its creation up to modern times. Out of necessity during the war, The Articles of Confederation were created, and shortly after that, The Constitution of the United States was written in light of the imperfections of the Articles of Confederation. The Articles of Confederation originated the Federal versus states’ rights debate in America, giving the states large amounts of power, and congress almost none. The Constitution of the United States furthered the debate later on creating tensions between those who favored states’ rights and were against the ratification of the
The Articles of the Confederation was the first government constitution that the United States used, and, although there were strength like the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, there were major weaknesses of the Articles of the Confederation like the following: requiring 9 out of the 13 colonial votes from the representatives from different states to pass a law; having no executive and judicial branch; and the federal government being unable to impose tax revenue onto the states. Such flaws would eventually lead to the Constitution and the repeal of the articles, for the Constitution was a measure to fix the problems of the articles with a stronger government that allowed them to impose taxes and and implement new laws for a more effective government.
Since the United States was relatively a new nation, it needed some form of organization to hold the states together and keep its government and society stable to build a stronger economy (Knoedl, 2003). The first and foremost inherited weakness of the Articles came from the fact that it replaced sovereign power in the hands of the states. This started after the American Revolution, when the American people feared that the colonists would form a new government that could function similarly to King George III’s monarchy after having dealt with the British Crown for years. Since then these states would start creating their own set of rules and laws and because of some states, creating their own constitutions and each state can rule itself, it gave more power to them than the actual Federal Government.
The thought process behind the Articles of Confederation was to create a document that created division between states with laws but also created confederacy by creating national laws to protect the defense of the country. - (Khan Academy) This would make it so that the state governments would have freedom to rule their own territories given to them without much national laws preventing them from controlling over everything. - (Khan Academy). The Founding Fathers also wanted to make the Articles of Confederation because they wanted to divide power and not let all of it be based on one-person ruling.
Can you imagine living without rules? You probably can, but rules are important and necessary for all people to live together, which is the main reason why The Articles of Confederation was created. It was the first constitution, and it’s purpose was to maintain armed forces, money, alliances, and treaties. Unfortunately, this didn’t really work as planned because it created a loose confederation and a weak central government leaving the state government the most in charge (Purdie Alexander, Articles of the Confederation and Perpetual Union, 1777.) One reason the central government was weak is because they lacked the ability to levy taxes and regulate commerce which was an issue that led to new federal laws.
A strong foundation is what every nation needs. To build something strong and lasting, it is important to put time and effort into its structure and values. The new constitution of America is more stable and stronger than the Articles of Confederation. At a time when the states were very much divided in many matters, the constitution allowed for a unified nation under one strong central government. Drafting the constitution was a continued matter.
Lack of representation was one thing in which the colonies wrote about in their grievances to Britain. Colonists had no representation in their government. They included this in their list of grievances sent to Britain to show that they wanted to have a say in their leaders. Because of this, the writers got the idea of popular sovereignty where the people have the most say in who the leader is. In the Constitution, the people elect the members of Congress who have power to levy taxes.
Before the constitution, people had the understanding of a union, but they were more overwhelmed by their insecurities for a strong dominating power. Under the fear of a tyranny gaining power, the earliest 13 states created the Articles of Confederation as the first framework of a national government, which gave the National Congress little power over the practicality of leadership. The nation was chaotic. Madison, a member of the Continental Congress, reacted to the situation through The Federalist Papers he participated in writing. Particularly, the principles of Federalist 10 and 51, complementing the shortcomings of the Articles of Confederation, was sufficient enough to eliminate the abuse of liberty and the arising tyrannies within the
Progress is impossible without change and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything. George Bernard Shaw Primarily, the articles on the confederation was the first written constitution of the United States. During the time it caused many destruction which steamed though everything. This process made everything becoming even slower than it is today. The central authority were feared and the land claims of the people would be authorized doing the 1781.
The Articles of Confederation, which were ratified in 1781, created the first form of federal government, named the Articles of Confederation. In 1787, a convention was called to revise the Articles of Confederation due to the Articles creating a weak central government, which gave states more power over the central government. Alexander Hamilton wanted a strong central government, which led him to envision Congress calling a convention to revise the Articles. The two detrimental problems of the Articles of Confederation were that the federal government had too little power and could not take action without 9/13 states approval, which is 70% of the total states. Furthermore, the other detrimental problem with the Articles of Confederation is not being able to enforce laws, they made the federal government so weak that they couldn’t even enforce laws amongst themselves.
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