Founding Fathers Hobbies Analysis

The Articles of Confederation was the first federal foundational laws of the United States. It was composed due to the conflicting views of the politicians at the time and the need to unite the States during the war. Its development and resoluteness had a sluggish inception due to some Americans uncertainties of the government’s substantial central power and property demands by States. The Articles of Confederation was finally sanctioned on March 1, 1781. Under the Articles, each States stayed autonomous, with Congress having the final say over disputes. Congress was also given the ability to make accords and agreements, uphold armies and currencies. The Articles of Confederation did best with territorial expansion in the West, thanks to the Ordinances that were written for the Articles and the benefits they had. However, under the Articles, the central government had no power to impose taxes and manage commerce, because of this the government was consistently short of funds. Despite the lack of funding, money was still required for the war effort, and Congress' meantime solution was to print nearly $250 million paper currency, this led to major inflation in the States. This deficit urged legislators to find a solution; the Constitution of 1787. Both the Articles and the Constitution worked to preserve a free government, different from the tyrannical rule they have experienced from the British Parliament. Also, both documents allowed states the power to manage mercantilism,

The Articles of Confederation developed dominance in separate states. Every state was evenly represented, and was granted one vote. Out of those 13 states only 9 states had to come to a “unanimous agreement,” in order for new amendments to be imposed. Some of the strengths were, “the power to make war & peace, handle foreign relations, Indian affairs, and adjudicate disputes between the states” (Creating the U.S. ppt I). An additional strength was The Articles had the control to print and mint money. However, I do not believe this was for their best interest. “Continental Paper Currency,” was valueless in other states; therefore, each state had to use their own money.

In his essay “Framing the Constitution,” Charles Beard believed that the Constitution was written for economic reasons. He claimed it was a document written by the rich and powerful whose only aim was for their wealth and property to be protected. Beard states “The men who were principally concerned in this work of peaceful enterprise were not the philosophers, but the men of business and property and the holders of public securities.” He supposed that there group of men who created the document were rich and greedy, and

During the eight years under the Articles of Confederation, the national debt continued to grow. The country came up with solutions, but the states ignored them. A correspondent in the Independent Chronicle in 1787 plead, “How long are we to continue on our present in-glorious acquiescence in the shameful resistance that some of the states persist in, against federal and national measures?” (Humphrey 2003, 113). Printer Nathaniel Willis called the young country a “union in crisis” (Humprey 2003, 106). Lack of revenue and no way of forcing states to contribute was one of the major and most noted flaws in the Articles of Confederation (Henretta et al. 2010).

There were a lot of problems with the Articles of Confederation. Some of which made it so bad to the point of people rebelling against the government. There were states taxing each other way too much. Some states struggled to get any kind of help because the majority of the states has to vote to help a state before it can get help. There were also strengths, like every state followed its own laws and jurisdiction. There were more weaknesses than strengths.

This book emphasizes the alternative interpretations offered by Americans on the origins of the Constitution. Holton’s purpose with this book was to show that the framers interests involved making America more attractive to investors. In order to do so, they purposefully made the government less democratic with the writing of the Constitution. However, with the addition of the Bill of Rights, one could argue the Framers had at least a slight concern for the American people and their civil liberties.

Charles Beard lived in a time when a vast majority of politicians and economists considered the views of the founding fathers to be infallible. In fact, many people nowadays still believe that to be the case. Beard, however, held a different opinion in regards to their writing of the Constitution. Whereas most people believe that it was written entirely due to the pressing issues concerning the economic state and unity of the country, Beard believed that it was at least in part due to those same politician’s selfish economic interests since all of them were wealthy men. He argued in An Economic Interpretation of the Constitutionthat the way the Constitution’s system of power and representation “were devices for keeping power in the hands of the rich” [1]. He makes an interesting case in his highly controversial book, but one

There were many problems and weaknesses contained in the Articles of Confederation. This was a problem for the country because the government could not have enough control over it. One of these problems was that the Congress did not have the power to coin its own money (Kelly). This meant that each individual state could create its own currency that could not be used country-wide. Congress was also unable to tax (Kelly). They could only borrow money from other countries or from its own citizens. Since the United States was in

The federal government, under the Articles, was too weak to enforce their power. The major weakness of the Articles were the following: each state only had one vote in Congress, regardless of size; congress did not have the power to tax; congress did not have power to regulate foreign and interstate commerce; there was no executive branch to enforce any acts passed by congress; thee was no national court system or judicial branch; amendments to the Articles required a unanimous vote; laws required 9/13 majority to pass in Congress; and states could levy tariffs on other states’ goods. This means that, under the Articles, each state viewed its own sovereignty and power as paramount to the national good, which led to conflicts between them. States didn’t support the national government financially, each state

Each state had there own money, this caused problems if states needed money help, some of the states couldn’t help each other. According to Document One the Articles of Confederation had no power to collect tax, and no power to enforce. That makes the government weaker and poorer. If they couldn’t tax how were they supposed to make money? Well they could not, this would hurt them a lot.

The nation’s economy was failing immensely and Articles of Confederation did not do much to help. Most war debts were unpaid and because there was no national currency, the individual states as well as the congress issued worthless paper money. The Congress had little power so they had no power to tax the and could only request that the state's donate money for national needs.

One major reason is that the Articles failed to correct for the weak and decentralized government system. Without a central decision-making body, the system was chaotic. For example, states had difficulty coordinating war efforts. No one knew who was in charge. In addition, the wording in the Articles of Confederation was unclear. Congress did not have any authority, for example, to levy taxes. This made it difficult to finance the war, as Congress could not demand money from the states. The inability of Congress to control the nation’s money supply was also manifested in another way. There was no central authority with control over the printing of currency. As a result, improper handling of the money supply led to inflation. Congress also had no power to regulate interstate commerce, which led to more chaos between states. There was no clear authority to solve disputes in between the states, and a quality of lawlessness pervaded

1. Before the Constitution, the Articles of the Confederation did not bind the states together; the Articles were called the “League of Friendship” which did not bring the states together as a United Nation. The states were totally independent and many were still in conflict with each other. There were no rules about taxes, and each state printed their own money. There was no protection from piracy on the seas and the states borders could not protected. The so called government had no money and did not have the ability or the authority to collect taxes and had no form of revenue. Nothing was in place that took the American citizens best interest in to account.

Not only did the states have a hard time paying the debts off as it was, new taxes were near impossible to pass due to a huge majority requirement. This problem was further exacerbated by the fact that the new union had no uniform system of currency, and all states could print money as they pleased to do so. In the coming years, leaders of the new government would find that such a system of slow legislation and excessive complication of currency would be a hindrance to the new nation, and would lead to the scrapping and re-writing of a new structure of government. The impact of this led to harsh impacts on economies as higher taxes and duties hit businesses hard, and the poor became even poorer. Furthermore, many rights of people were not guaranteed in the new Articles of Confederation. Gray states, “ The unlimited power granted to Justices of the Peace, Serriffs, Deputy-Serriffs and Constables, by the Riot Act, indemnifying them in the prosecution thereof, when perhaps wholly actuated from a principle of revenge, hatred and envy” had led to problems between the people and the government officials that had grossly over extended their power, taking personal affairs onto the justice of the new nation. The states had no real obligation to follow federal laws as meant, but rather that “Full faith and

The original Articles of Confederation were created with the intent of federalizing the absolute minimum numbers of responsibilities. This was problematic and effectively balkanized the early united states. The federal government couldn't collect taxes and therefore couldn't raise funds to support national programs,