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Strengths And Weaknesses Of The Articles Of Confederation

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How the Weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation Outweigh The Strengths In 1775 The American Revolution was uncontrollable, with Britain and the colonies, at the time, going head to head fighting for control. During the chaos, the new nation acknowledged that it needed a stable government if they were going to win the war. Their leaders wrote a set of rules to help control the country in 1777. The Articles of Confederation were a set of rules to be the first document that established the functions of their national government after it declared independence. Even though the Articles of Confederation strengthened their country’s geography, their politics, and economy severely weakened America. The Articles of Confederation strengthened their geography by creating the Northwest Ordinance. In 1787 the …show more content…

This ordinance also made it so that the Native Americans had to be treated fairly. America's young nation's geographical achievement helped strengthen its new country. Even though the Articles of Confederation had many weaknesses that affected their country both politically and economically. One way the Articles of Confederation weakened their government was Shays Rebellion. Shays Rebellion was a rebellion led by Daniel Shay to protest courts for seizing farms from people who could not pay their loans. Many of these farmers who joined the rebellion had been fighting in the American Revolution, leading the farmers to not be able to tend to their land. The government did not pay them for all the time the farmers spent fighting in the war. Shay was determined to save his farm so he gathered nearly 2,000 farmers and started to attack courthouses. The point of attacking courthouses was to prevent the courts from selling property as payment for debts. Once George Washington stated, “If there exists not a power to check them,” Washington questioned what would happen and what was happening at the time without an executive branch (Document 3).

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Shay’s Rebellion thought that the Articles of confederation was not strong enough and that there should be more power in the central government. The Articles of confederation was seen weak because, it revealed the economic issues and taxation, the lack of leadership, and not being efficient in making laws. In Shay’s rebellion raising the tax on farmers to pay off debt was a weakness. Farmers had taken out loans due to shortages of the revolution, and were being taxed by state.

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The limited powers of the United States central government under the Articles of Confederation, exemplified by events like Shays' Rebellion, significantly influenced the development of the Constitution between 1777 and 1789, leading to the creation of a stronger and more centralized federal government. This transition from a weak and decentralized government to a more powerful federal authority was a direct response to the challenges and shortcomings experienced under the Articles of Confederation. The period from 1777 to 1789 was marked by the aftermath of the American Revolution and the formation of a new nation. The Articles of Confederation, adopted in 1777, established a decentralized government with limited powers given to the central authority. However, this system of government faced numerous challenges, including economic instability, lack of national defense, and difficulties in implementing policies.

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The Articles of Confederation was the first plan for governing the nation. It tried to help the union become a fair union. It tried to give the states as much power as possible, but with this came many weaknesses. The biggest weakness being that the national government could not force the states to obey their laws. The national government could not tax the people or enforce laws and congress did not have a strong leadership role.

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Despite its disadvantages, the Articles of Confederation did have some benefits. One was that it allowed the states to keep a lot of power. This made the states happy, and they were more likely to work with the federal government. Another benefit was that it prevented the national government from becoming too powerful. This was an issue for the Founding Fathers, who had just fought a war to escape the tyranny of the British government.

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457 Words | 2 Pages

The articles of confederation were weak in the central government and the states having significant power. The article of confederation can only request states pay taxes. No bill of rights either. Money inflates, and they cannot pay back loans for bad credit. They also had difficulty for the new nation to repay their debts from the revolutionary war.

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200 Words | 1 Pages

The articles of confederation has many strengths but also some weaknesses, one strength is that it gave congress the power to deal with foreign affairs and authority to declare war, make peace, alliances, and sign treaties. This was a huge step because now a designated person has the control to make big decisions such as these. It also encouraged coordination and cooperation between different states and they can settle disputes between the states. This ultimately led to less conflict amongst the states in the United States and gave further attention to the conflict going on out of the U.S. A weakness that was not resolved by the Articles of Confederation is they have no power to regulate commerce or trade between the states; each state could

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263 Words | 2 Pages

As it applies to the Articles of Confederation there were many weaknesses in the way it went about governing the United States. For one, the loose federation of the states was too weak to act as a foundation to be considered or act as a central government. In addition the state legislatures had too much power and in turn had the ability to influence economic issues of all kinds. This strong legislature is the same one that allowed for mob ruling and actions by debtors. The Articles of confederation were also weak because the required congress to have all 13 colonies in agreement when a new tax was to be passed.

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Anna Lahair Mr. Mingace 8th Grade Civics 26 February 2023 The Strengths and Weakness’ of the Articles of Confederation Making a new government is hard. The makers of the Articles of Confederation created a more fragile government because they did not want an overpowering government but, they may have left out necessities for running a government. The articles of confederation were made in Philadelphia in 1777 to be a national government for the new States.

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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.

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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.

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287 Words | 2 Pages

The Articles of Confederation was the first constitution of the United States. This document helped and hindered our government in many ways. It was successful in that Congress established a national treasury, and states had begun contributing. It was also successful because Congress created an administrative system to coordinate the daily operations of government. However, there were quite a few things that lead to the Articles of Confederation’s failure.

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Under the Articles of Confederation was a new set of laws that were set up by the new government. Problems that occurred was that land was to be split and people on Northwest Territory had to get the land split into different states. At first this was a problem, but it led to the Land of Ordinance and the Northwest Ordinance which was a Confederation success. A negative was a need for a stronger government which started Shay’s Rebellion.

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The Articles of Confederation that governed the new nation after the revolution were notable for their unifying ability and land ordinances; however, they ultimately created more problems through inadequate taxation, their inability to pass laws, and an incapacitated central government.

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784 Words | 4 Pages

In one hand, the Articles of Confederation had a weak central government, differing form the strong central government in the Constitution. The Constitution’s government had a structure of three different branches; the legislative, executive, and judicial branch; unlike the Articles of Confederation that had no structure whatsoever. The Articles of Confederation had many problems like, the poor international trade, poor foreign relations and a weak economy in contrast to the Constitution that only had one problem, the struggle over the ratification. the Articles of Confederation achieved the Northwest Ordinance and the Northwest Territory and according to a history website, the Constitution achieved that we had a system of checks and balances, that we had a bill of rights, and, eventually, the survival of a bloody civil war intact. Lastly, the Constitution had three compromises: the Great Compromise, the Three-Fifths Compromise and the Slave Trade compromise.

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888 Words | 4 Pages

They protested because they were against tax collections and judgement for debts. They attacked and 4 rebels died and another 20 were wounded. A lot of them got put in prison, 2 of them were executed, and 16 were sentenced to hang. After this protest the Americans feared “ an excess of powers in the ruler's ” Since the Shay’s Rebellion happened it first caused the leaders of the country to worry about the confederation and their ability to handle civil disorder. Second it had provoked many people of the fear that with the Articles of Confederation it was allowing the government to lose power.

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