Colonial Grievances

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

The Constitutional Convention was held in May 25 1787 in Philadelphia to discuss revising the Article of Confederation. Delegates from the various states met in Philadelphia and George Washington president was elected to preside over Convention. However, the result of convention wasn’t likely what the purpose of convention to revise the Article of Confederation because what it ended up doing could not answer successfully the question of slavery and was creating a new constitution, which was the United States Constitution. There were three plans submitted for government structure which were Virginia, New Jersey, and Connecticut Compromise.

After settling in America, colonists felt that their natural rights were being violated under British rule. This sparked their desire for self-government and independence from the British Empire. Under British rule, Parliament had the power to impose laws and taxes upon the colonies; many of the laws violated natural rights, and taxes were imposed despite the colonies not having representation in Parliament. These injustices encouraged colonists to fight for independence, basing their argument upon the philosophy of natural rights. Leaders of the colonies drafted the Declaration of Independence, which listed the many injustices and declared the colonies

Throughout the colonial period, relationships between the colonists and the British Empire continued to deteriorate. Taxation was mostly seen as being harmful for the American society but on the other hand beneficial to the crown. Tired of not being considered in matters that were critical to their daily life, colonists decided to prepare and submit their declaration of Independence to the British Empire. There were 27 remarks pointed out where the King completely ignored Americans rights and votes. It was not until July 4th, 1776 when Great Britain finally recognized the United States of America as an independent nation granting the power to the colonists to govern themselves.

During the 1770’s Great Britain had made colonists feel as if they were tied down with the government. The king would make them change the way they live and as to how they work by restrictions of trade and often colonists would question their loyalty. Along comes the French and Indian war where the colonists had to settle on different lands due to the Proclamation of 1763 which caused them to settle back east. The ideas of American independence changed significantly from 1763 to 1783. In the beginning colonists had only thought of having representation once it came closer to 1783 colonists wanted full freedom from the British law.

In the name the word "confederation" is used to describe governments with less centralized powers and more power located in local and state governments. Which is exactly what the Articles set up. This was a direct result of the tyranny that America had just endured as English colonies before declaring independence. With the American Revolution ending America was in need of its first written constitution. In 1781 the Articles of Confederation was ratified as the first United States constitution. This constitution set up a very weak federal government, and granted states a large amount of power. The central government lacked the ability to collect taxes and regulate commerce. With that being said congress was allowed to declare war, make treaties and alliances, and coin money. However each state was allowed to be mostly independent. Realizing that this type of government would not last very long the Federalist began to push for a new, stronger constitution. After the revolution the ability for the central government to tax was a necessity in order to pay of the debt America

The articles of confederation had limited powers they weren’t allowed to do many things for example, they weren’t allowed to tax, it can’t force the states to finance its operations, and couldn’t force a commercial policy. It didn’t make sense how the citizens of the United States felt like the constitution was weak if the articles of confederation did not have an executive branch in their documents. The articles of confederation only had a legislative branch whereas the Constitution had an executive, judicial, and legislative branch.

During the convention our Founding Fathers worked together to create the U.S. Constitution that we know of today. Our founding fathers used the gathering to address all of the problems that the Articles brought. One of the main issues included a weak central government and a powerful state government.

The Constitutional Convention convened in 1787 to discuss to revision of the Articles of Confederation. However, as the debates went on, the delegates soon discovered they needed to write a completely new form of government rather than revise the old one. This convention which created the ensuing Constitution was called because of the various problems with the Articles of Confederation, such as a federal government that was too weak and economic laws that were causing the American economy to decline rather than grow. These characteristics of the Articles built up over the years until the unrest became apparent to the state governments with a rebellion in Massachusetts. The first major problem with the Articles which led to the calling of the convention was the limited power they gave the federal government.

The Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia was a secret meeting that took place between May and September of 1787. The reason of this meeting was to revise the Articles of Confederation. As well the problem from the Revolutionary War debt. The president of this convention was George Washington. Fifty four individuals attended which most of them were wealthy young persons who wanted to protect the economic of the state. The Constitution that arrived from the convention accepted a government with more limited powers, where each brand would check and balance the authority between the Judicial Executive and Legislative

During the revolution, many congress meetings were held in which documents such as the Articles of Confederation, the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution were created. The Declaration of Independence mentioned all of the wrong doings of the British government. This article helped influence the Constitution being that the creators made sure to fully address the grievances and made the colonists happy. The Constitution adequately addressed the grievances outlined in the Declaration of Independence by creating a strong federal government that allowed for representation and protected the rights of the citizens.

Due to issues including enforcement, taxation, and voting requirements, the Articles of Confederation proved to be an ineffective and somewhat useless form of government. One problem existed which caused the Articles to not require the states to follow any laws Congress passed, resulting from the declarations being unable to be enforced. Because of this, Congress was unable to control the states. Every state owned the ability to pass any laws that said state decided to pass, without anything holding them in check. Also, the inability of Congress to collect taxes from the citizens, which proves to be the only way for a small government like the young America to effectively make money. Because Congress did not control the ability to tax Americans,

First, the Articles of Confederation were viewed as an overall weakness. It did not allow congress to obtain really any power over the people; therefore we had a weak central government. Congress was not granted the power that they needed in order to keep things in order,“Probably the most unfortunate part of the Articles of confederation were that the central government could not prevent one state from discriminating against other states in the quest for foreign commerce.” (Ginsberg, et. al. 2014: 35). States were rebelling and our new found country was in chaos and our Congress was not able to prevent states from discriminating against other states. For example, another downfall to this document was that, “The Articles of Confederation were concerned

The Constitutional Convention of 1787 was held to address problems in governing the United States which had been operating under the Articles of Confederation since it’s independence from Britain. Fifty-five delegates from the states attended the convention to address these issues. The delegates consisted of federalists who wanted a strong central government to maintain order and were mainly wealthier merchants and plantation owners and anti-federalists who were farmers, tradesmen and local politicians who feared losing their power and believed more power should be given to the states. The Constitutional Convention dealt with the issue of the debate between federalists and anti-federalists. The debates, arguments and compromises

Under the Articles of Confederation, the United States government was decentralized. The states had more power than the federal government. State governments had the power to tax but the federal government did not (Janda 62). This caused congress to have to beg for money from the states in order to pay for the cost of the Revolutionary War and the cost of starting a new nation. Another issue under the Articles of Confederation was the lack of economic control the federal government had on the states (63). The national government attempted to restrict foreign imports but the states did not listen and continued making deals with foreign countries. This caused debt and bankruptcy to fall upon numerous states. The Articles of Confederation also