Strengths And Weaknesses Of The Articles Of Confederation

So as you can evidently see, the articles was far less regulated, and most all the power resided with the states, not the

upon the states to contribute forces, and however in the new system Congress could raise an army for military situations. There was also interstate commerce, which could be controlled by congress in the Constitution, and alike, disputes between states could now be dealt with by the federal Court system instead of a complicated system of Arbitration. Passing laws was yet another point of change, where only 9/13 votes were needed to approve legislation before, the Constitution needed

While the Articles of Confederation unified the American colonies for the first time, the individual states had a hard time allowing a central government to solely control their territory. Due to fear of an all powerful monarchy like the one they had experienced in England the colonies were wary of allowing a central government certain powers. These certain powers included control of commerce, ability to tax, and even the ability to act directly upon individual citizens of a state. While the Articles provided a loose confederation to unify the new country, they were only a temporary solution due to their obvious weaknesses in several areas. The Articles of Confederation were essentially

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.

The Articles of Confederation were designed and formed from the thirteen states that created a Confederation known as the “league of friendship”; their goal was to find solutions for problems; and one of the first attempts to create a system. The Articles of Confederation was our nation’s first constitution; during the last years of the Revolutionary war, the government had been conducting our country’s affairs helping to negotiate the Treaty of Paris in 1783.

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.

They were a few shortcomings and advantages in the new government under the Articles of Confederation I would like to discuss. First of all the weaknesses that articles of confederation have gone through were certain people in the congress lacked leadership, could not tax, there militia or military was small, and one vote per state. The advantages they had were that they could borrow money and make peace also sign treaties. There were several sentiments and ideas. The “new vision want to make political authority legitimate and secure liberty” (Wilson, 2008, p.20). The system of government was established by articles to respect liberties given to them. Founding fathers replaced the document because certain states used the document for different

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

After many years of fighting for independence, America needed a break from any type of government. Well you see in order to have a functioning country you need some type of functioning government. When the idea of a government came up many were fearful of what could happen. What if they resorted back to the old ways? What if all those years of fighting for independence were for nothing? Congress had to start somewhere. And in November 1777, The Articles of Confederation were accepted. “The Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation, the first constitution of the United States, on November 5, 1777.” The main purpose of the Articles of Confederation was to have something to hold on to while America set up. However there Articles did not deal very well with state things. Such as dealing with foreign relations and economic conditions. When accepted the Articles were only to work under certain conditions. Conditions being those such as not interfering with other states and their commerce. Or states that had not paid if war debts. Out of fear of becoming their enemy they thought that it was a good idea. Congress created many departments and one of them was the Department of

The Constitution did not include the Bill of Rights, the Anti- Federalists believed that this was yet another example of there being no limit on the centralized government’s power, and there was no protection for the

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.

“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.

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 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 sovereignty of individual states meant that the influence of national government was weak and for a more stable country. The states had to abolish this to empower the federal government