Essay about Articles of Confederation

The Articles of Confederation was the first system of government that the united states ever put into force, and is the only one they ever wrote besides the constitution. The articles was created due to a need for the United States to unite during the american revolution, and was basically a loosely bound union of states, so it was obvious that this was essentially just to semi-unite the states in order to fight the british, and they would form a more stable form of government after the fact, which they did when they wrote the constitution. I will now list the provisions of the Articles of Confederation.

I believe the Confederation Government was doomed to fail. For instance, their “weak Constitution,” had several money problems. One weakness was the Government did not have the power to tax. The Government lacked in funds. This left the Articles no choice but to rely on

The Founding fathers did not want to create a government with too much power so they created the Articles of Confederation. This government turned out to be a failure. In 1787, the founding fathers met again to create a new framework of government. Most people feared creating a government that was too strong. To create a new government there had to be many compromises, the U.S. Constitution is the result of these compromises reached in Philadelphia in 1787. The Articles of Confederation were too weak and created many problems which led to a stronger National government. Two weaknesses of the Articles of confederation were that Congress did not have the power to tax. Another problem was that the states had most of the power and the National Government had little power. Two decisions made by the

After the American Revolution, the Articles of Confederation were created to create a stronger and more effective government. However, it failed as a result of an ineffective government. From 1781 to 1789, the articles of confederation were ineffective and failed to provide a strong government.

The Articles of Confederation were developed after the Revolutionary War, and were a good idea to help set standards for America. However, they had some major problems that needed to be solved in order for America to become a strong nation. After these problems were addressed the Constitution was developed.

The colonists were living in a brand new country that had no track record. Considering that the articles of confederation had no precedent to follow, and no other government to imitate; the articles were fairly good. However, the Articles of Confederation could have been more effective than they were. Effective does not necessarily mean that the government was strong. It does mean that the government was able to provide the people with the kind of government they wanted and needed. Also, ineffective does not necessarily mean weak. The Articles were deliberately written for a weak central government, the colonists set it up they way they wanted to. Despite the fact that they one the revolutionary war, and they now

During the years 1781 to 1789, the Articles of Confederation was the bases of the current government. This confederation was set up to create a weak government, leaving main power in the state legislatures. The people of the new United States did not foresee having a strong central government in fear of a monarchy such as that of Great Britain's. To a significant extent, the government under these articles were ineffective due to the lack of power in Congress and control of foreign relations. A contribution to the downfall of the Articles of Confederation is the insufficiency of it.

The Articles of Confederation was the United State’s first constitution, it was written in an effort to unite the states after the American Revolution and served as a blueprint for the modern constitution. In order for the Articles to become official, they had to be approved by all thirteen colonies. Although Congress sent the Articles of Confederation to the states around the end of 1777 to become ratified, they were not officially adopted until March 1, 1781. Under these Articles, the states remained sovereign and independent, with Congress serving as the last resort on appeal of disputes. The American people feared a strong national government and as a result of this, the Articles of Confederation were specifically designed to be weak in the sense that each state maintains its own sovereignty and all rights to govern themselves, with the except of the rights exclusively granted to Congress. Since the Articles lacked many necessary components to keep a nation properly structured, they were eventually revised into the constitution we recognize today. Although, the Articles of Confederation seemed as though it only contained weaknesses, within the document, many strengths and accomplishments were made. Overall, the Articles of Confederation were proven to be both efficient and non-efficient during the time period they were in effect.

But the articles denied Congress the power to collect taxes, regulate interstate commerce and enforce laws. Because of this, the central government had to request donations from the states to finance its operations and raise armed forces. The states attempted to limit the power of the national government because they feared that it would become a monarchy. In an effort to limit the power of the national government, Congress created one without enough power to govern effectively, which led to serious national and international problems.

The Articles of Confederation was the first official constitution for the United States. The Articles of Confederation had many positives, but mostly negatives. Some of the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation was it was too weak, so the laws being enforced were being ignored because it had no power, it had no money to protect against border invasions, and it also didn’t have enough power to tax, so all the money came from the state. Some of the few positives of the Articles of Confederation was that it had the power to deal with foreign affairs, it could declare wars, make peace, and sign treaties.

Recently, in the City of Philadelphia, home of the Continental Congress and the Liberty Bell representatives of the many states met in the same locations and the men who, just so recently, met there to declare us free from English tyranny and produce one of the greatest political documents in the history of human governance. All of us together followed the words of those men who met in Philadelphia and fought for our liberty and the idea of self-governance. And together, we all won the Revolutionary War and established a new nation on the earth. For several years we were guided by the Articles of Confederation, but as we were all new to the practice of self-governance (which itself was a new idea, so we had no real models to copy) many problems emerged which the Articles were not fit to solve.

“The Constitution devotes the national domain to union, to justice, to defense, to welfare and to liberty” (Maier 154). This quote, stated by William Henry Seward, displays the strength and stability that the Constitution had over the nation, and the liberty and justice it supplied for all of its citizens. Although the Constitution and the Articles of Confederation have similarities, they have many differences, which proved that the Articles of Confederation were a weaker document in comparison. It can be said that the Articles were the “rough draft” to the final living document, which significantly influenced and “ruled” our government, as it still does today.

The failure of the Articles of Confederation help the founders to create a more stable government system with the Constitution. The flaws in the Articles helped them make changes that made the new system very effective. Under the Constitution, Congress had a right to levy taxes (Feldmeth). This fixed the problem of the government always running short on funds because they could only request taxes from the government. They were also able to raise an army to deal with threats, something they were not able to do under the Articles. States are more evenly represented under the Constitution instead of being

The national government of the United States had many challenges under the Articles of Confederation. The Articles caused money problems and the most essential detail, a weak government. This also caused America conflicts among each of the 13 states. These problems greatly impacted the United States and it’s government as well.

The Articles of Confederation, a written agreement that ensured each state’s sovereignty, freedom and independence, led America to victory over the British centralized government. During the late eighteenth century, the empowered government terrified the Americans, hence the thirteen colonies decided to spread governance powers equally to all functional states. The states had absolute dominance over the Congress due to the Articles of Confederation. While the localized power of states seemed to be promising, the system posed great threat to the major components of a democratic government, which are coercion, revenue, and legitimacy (Lecture 1 - The Roots of Government). The system of localized power did not ensure legitimacy, which referred to people’s recognition of national government. Congress’s lack of power to control each state’s actions caused great chaos. Eventually, national government’s lack of power and inability to unify the states exposed multiple flaws in the Articles of Confederation; consequently, a new supreme law, the Constitution was established by the founding fathers. The new supreme law successfully altered the imbalanced system into a novel democratic government.