What Are The Reasons For The Articles Of Confederation

Before declaring independence, John Dickinson constructed The Articles of Confederation as the structure of government between the thirteen colonies. In reassessing the structure of government for the colonies, James Madison, Adam Hamilton, and John Jay under the name Publius, wrote the federalist papers. Publius determined the Articles of Confederation to be defective for three main reasons: the abuse of state legislative power, the absence of executive enforcement, and the articles being a treaty, rather than a constitution. The abuse of state legislative power in the Articles of Confederation allowed government laws to benefit the few, and not the common good of the colonies. James Madison, in the Vices of the Political System of the United States, explains that “A still more fatal if not more frequent cause lies among the people themselves.” The problem of excessive power in state legislature is rooted in the people themselves. Through the multiplicity and mutability of state laws, individuals discovered they

The independent states were distinctly united through defense and trade forming an alliance, rather than one unified people. Madison argues that “Under the form of such a constitution, it is in fact nothing more than a treaty of amity of commerce and of alliance, between so many independent and Sovereign States.” The Articles of Confederation formed as a treaty allows the succession of states through the violation of one party. Madison continues by describing that “…a breach of any of the articles of the confederation by any parties to it, absolves the other parties from their respective obligations, and gives them a right to choose to exert it, of dissolving the Union altogether.” In recognizing the Articles of Confederation as a treaty, it allows for the disband of the Union through the violation of the