Pros And Cons Of The Articles Of Confederation

The Constitution of the United States of America was framed in part by The Articles of

The Articles of Confederation could also be determined ineffective. They did not provide a president, any kind of executive agency, or judiciary and they did not have any kind of tax base or way to pay off state and national debts. Document A shows how ineffective the government was because it was unable to impose taxation due to a very small minority. Rhode Island rejected the tax so the government decided not to put it into effect. If taxes had been put in place, some of the state and national debts may have been able to be paid off. Without a strong leader, basic things like taxes cannot be imposed, which is why the Articles were so ineffective. They did not provide a way for the states to be controlled.

The colonists did not trust a strong federal government that could easily be corrupted. The Articles of Confederation was drafted during the years 1776 and 1777 while the colonists were still fighting for independence. It created a weak national government with most of the governmental powers retained by the states. The Articles of Confederation Congress failed as a national government for the new United States for it provided a weak national government that did not have enough power, lacking the presence of a president and the Congress not given the power to tax and regulate trade. Other reasons why the Articles of Confederation failed were: there was no common currency provided, each state back then has only one vote regardless of its population and there were no executive or judicial branches that are vital for a government to operate

There exists a similarity between both the federalists and the anti-federalists. Both felt that government was necessary because ‘men were not “angels”’ (Bryner, Public Virtue and the Roots of American Government, 1987). However, they disagree on the size of government and the republic. The federalists wanted a large republic with a central government while the anti-federalist wanted a small republic with a state government. In this essay, I generally agree with the statements except the part where federalists were republicans because they envisioned the commonweal of the national community. The weakness of this argument is that there may be a false impression that the candidate is truly virtuous. Thus, when he becomes the national government,

One of the main disadvantages of the Articles of Confederation was that it encouraged a weak central government. Because nine out of thirteen states had to agree upon a law in order for it to be established, very few laws were passed. Amendments of the Articles of Confederation were never passed because the vote had to be unanimous. Not many decisions were made and the Congress generally only had the power to make treaties, deal with foreign affairs, and declare war. The Articles of Confederation read, “Each state shall contain its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right…” (Article II) The states had the most power and the Congress very rarely made decisions that affected the internal affairs of the states or country. There was only one house of Congress where each state only had one vote. This did not allow the bigger states with a greater population to have an advantage over the smaller states, which one could perceive as unfair in certain circumstances. Also, there was no judicial branch, which meant that if a case was not solved on a state level, it had nowhere to go. Fundamentally, the states held the most power. The lack of power within the Congress led to economic crisis.

In the article The Fears of the Federalist by Linda K. Kerber and The Fears of the Jeffersonian Republic by Drew R. McCoy, both draws the ideals of the federalist and the Republicans distant conflict of opposing ideas in the political field. Kerber expresses, in her article, how federalist were carefully placed people with leadership from the top minds of wealthy society. As for McCoy shined the Republicans in his article as a bright blue collar society of united people that were more willing to change with more of rebellious mindset. Yet these groups seem to have ideas on different spectrums of the political layout. A vision of what America should become, both feared that the effects of each other's assembly would have on the public and influence for change in the future of the United States stability at home and foreign.

During the era or time in which the Articles of Confederation were in place, the document had a lot of weakness; maybe too many weaknesses. These weaknesses included: It had created a struggling economy, had no Judiciary, only had a legislature (Congress), no executive (President), and gave too much power to the states or the people. A weakness that the Articles had been that the people thought that the government would help with the economy. This caused a struggling economy, and that had a lot of consequences like Continental Army marching against the government for

Two significant problems that made the Articles of Confederation a poor form of government were, the colonies couldn’t tax and there was no chief executive overseeing the colonies. After the war the colonies were in debt. One of the only ways they could pay off their debt was to tax the people in the colonies. However, the colonies had just fought in many battles against taxation so it would be unfair to be taxed after all of that. As the political cartoon shows the ship that is representing the Articles of confederation is being sunk because the colonies had no money. WIthout money the colonies couldn’t raise an army, have power over the currency, stop rebellions, or stand up to European powers. Another reason why the Articles of confederation

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

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 Articles of Confederation, although a big first step, had more weaknesses than strengths. In fact, the major downfall of the Articles of Confederation was its weakness. Under the Articles, the federal government had little power and was too weak to enforce any laws. The Articles gave Congress the power to pass new laws but they did not have any power to enforce them. If a state decided that they did not want to follow a law then they could just ignore it. Congress also had no power to regulate trade or levy taxes and without an executive leader or federal court system there was no way to enforce anything. Another large downfall of the Articles of Confederation is that to Amend it required a unanimous decision which in most cases is extremely difficult. Because the Articles of Confederation are often considered a failure, it’s easy to look past the achievements of the American government under those Articles. The most important piece of legislation passed under the Articles of Confederation is the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. This Ordinance provided the guidelines by which new states would use to be admitted into the Union. Judges and Governors appointed by Congress would oversee a territory until there was five-thousand free male citizens of voting age. The citizens would then elect a territorial legislature, which sent a non-voting delegate to Congress. When the population hit sixty-thousand, the territorial legislature would be eligible to submit a state constitution,

The Articles of Confederation and the new Constitution of 1787 differed in almost every aspect. These articles created a loose confederation of independent states, while allotting the central government regulated powers. Under these articles, the federal government would be comprised of a single house of Congress, while each state had one vote. Congress had the power to set up a postal department, to estimate the costs of the government and request donations from the states. These donations could be used to create armed forces and to regulate the development of the western territories. Congress needed the votes of nine out of the thirteen states to coin, borrow, or appropriate money as well as declare war and create treaties with other nations.

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.

They did not trust strong governments, so the central government very little power (Murphy). There was no court system given to the national government so the states were in charge of it all, which meant complaints could not be filed against them (Brackemyre). One of the only powers the national government had was to declare war but they were not allowed to raise an army to fight it and it lacked a chief executive to conduct foreign affairs. The United States also had an ineffective legislative under the Articles of Confederation. Amendments that they wanted to be passed needed to be vote on unanimously and there had to be a nine out of thirteen vote to pass a law (Kelly). Each state also had only one despite their population. Under the Articles, the government did not have a stable economic system, lacked key central leadership and had an inefficient legislature.

The Federalists and the Republicans had been disputing for a while. One of the disputes was over The Federal Government. Federalists favored a strong national government that would rule the citizenry directly rather than through the states and preferred a loose interpretation of the Constitution in order to manipulate things to go their way. Federalists were Pro-British. Republicans feared a strong national government would return the country to monarchy and trample on individual liberty, which is something they had fought towards for years. They believed in states’ rights and a strict interpretation of the Constitution. Republicans were generally Pro-French.