Essay On The Articles Of Confederation Problems

With the United States new found independence from Great Britain, its founding fathers realize from their historical experiences that a document of law needed to be crafted and established to preserve its new found independence, while maintaining order. However, the first document crafted by the founding fathers, the Articles of Confederation, did preserve the country new found independence but it did not maintain order. The Articles of Confederation described by many founding fathers to be a document that was crafted to satisfy needs of every state for its ratification, even when the document did not present a responsible democracy. The Articles of Confederation granted all national powers to the congress; however, it allowed each state

The first way that the Constitution helped with the weaknesses of the United States were the different ways it made passing laws more fair. When amending a document the Articles of Confederation needed 13 out of 13 people to approve of the document. The Constitution provided a more reasonable way by having ⅔ of both houses and ¾ of the state legislature. This is a better method because not 100% of people are going to agree on everything. The same type of thing worked when passing laws. 9/13 people needed to approve in the Articles of Confederation while it’s now 50% +1 of both houses plus the signature of the President. This allows for things to be more fair and it makes sure everyone in power somewhat agrees on what is going on and not just a couple of people are deciding on what the citizens new laws will be.

When the founders were creating the Constitution for the new nation they wanted to keep the freedoms of the United States but wanted to have a strong government. They thought the best way to get a strong government but to keep the people’s rights were to create the three branches of government. The three branches of government are Executive, Legislative, and Judicial Branch. Legislative makes laws, Executive enforces the laws, and the Judicial branch explains the laws. Know we will key on the Legislative Branch.

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 Articles of Confederation have strengths and weakness. I am going to start with the strengths. The first strength and the important one is having thirteen colonies united under one government that make these colonies a strong country together. Another strength is given the departments a specific defined roles for various parties to run the country more effectively. The Articles of Confederation inspired the coordination and cooperation between different states, so that’s also one of the strength of the Articles of Confederation. “It allowed the Central Government to sign treaties and peace deals with other countries giving rise to a stable neighborhood. The peace treaty with England was one such deal.” (Web) Having a stable country is most important thing to have a strong new country, and to have a stable country it should be peace between the states. And that is what the Article of Confederation accomplished. Finally, the population got increased to more than 60000 as big untied country and that could increase the economy of the country too because more people means more tax.

The Articles of Confederation and the Constitution are two very important guidelines of government that shaped the political minds of the Americans. Mainly because these guidelines limited, or expanded the powers of the executive, legislative, and judicial branch. The Articles of Confederation were a series of laws that gave more power to the state government than the federal government. As a result, the federal government could not enforce laws or levy taxes. After Shay’s Rebellion, the Founding Fathers realized that a change was necessary. So the Constitution was created. The most important change of the Constitution was that the majority of power was then shifted into the hands of the federal or central government. This allowed the federal

This document was written in the 18th century specifically during the Federalist Era. It was written 18 years after America won independence from England on July 4, 1776. This lead to the creation of the “Articles of Confederation” which were made primarily for the people because they feared central government having all power. Then at The Annapolis Convention (1786) is where the groundworks of “The U.S. Constitution” were discussed to replace the “Articles of Confederation”.

Speaking against the ratification of the Constitution, Patrick Henry says, "If a wrong step be now made, the republics may be lost forever. If this new government will not come up to the expectation of the people...their liberty will be lost and tyranny must and will rise..." The leaders of the country created the U.S. Constitution due to an immense dissatisfaction with the system of government stated in the Articles of Confederation. The Articles of Confederation support a government in which there is only one branch, but it's power would be limited in order to protect the people's liberty and rights. Although the Articles of Confederation establish a better system of government than when the states were under British rule, some weaknesses were found and amended in a new document called the United States

While the newly independent United States was full of new ideas and plans, there were also multiple challenges that had to be discussed amongst the the higher ups. For instance, what kind of government should be established? What will the goals of this new government be? How will new territory be managed? As these very valid and vital questions were being discussed, other challenges came about, and more answers were needed. American leaders agreed on a republic government, or popular sovereignty, but then came an entirely new set of challenges such as the burdening consequences of this new government, and what exactly would be done about who should be more powerful; a central government or the states. It was more than obvious that there were

From 1781 to 1789 the Articles of Confederation did not provide the United States with an effective government. This is due to the following three reasons: The United States’ lack of an army, nonexistent judicial branch, and surplus of power to the states. After the American Revolution concluded, thousands of soldiers returned home to find little or nothing left. Financial support the government had promised the soldiers with after the war was no longer available due to the inability of the central government to collect taxes as stated in the Articles (Doc. C). This later resulted in Shays’ Rebellion, a march led by Daniel Shays in western Massachusetts during January of 1787.

The creation of a government takes time and goes through many failures and successes. The Articles of Confederation, while being the first attempt at a new government fails by trying to keep revolutionary ideals, but not giving the national government enough power. With the Articles failing a new national government was needed. The Constitution was created to fix the failures of the Articles, but this was a gradual process, the state representatives creating it looked towards the past, by putting in revolutionary ideals, to build it.

The way the Constitution fixed the problems that were wrong with the article of confederation. Separation of power under the Confederation there was only one branch of government and it could make laws. However it could not settle disputes over laws. In the Constitution there are three branches of government, the legislative, executive, and judicial branch. The problem with checks and balance under the confederations plan is the Founding Fathers believed that the confederation was weak because they feared tyranny, however it failed to serve the nation’s needs. The founding fathers under the Constitution divided the power of articles 1, 2, and 3 of the Constitution. They also gave each branch a specific means to check or limit power. This helps

“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.