The Articles Of Confederation And The Constitution

The Articles of Confederation, Adopted by Congress on November 15, 1777, for all practical purposes was the United States’ first Constitution. Created to establish a bond between the newly formed states, “...the Articles purposely established a "constitution" that vested the largest share of power to the individual states” (Early America). This ensured that the government did not have the majority of power. “...the Articles denied Congress the power to collect taxes, regulate interstate commerce and enforce laws...allowing the states retained their "sovereignty, freedom and independence” (Early

The Articles of Confederation became the first guiding principles of the original thirteen states. However, the weaknesses embedded in the articles became obvious, outweighing its positive impact and they were ratified in 1781. George Washington sated that the articles were "little more than a shadow without the substance."1 They limited the central government’s ability to work smoothly and adversely affected the economy. Lack of power left the government in dismay and they sought a fix to their problems without becoming a tyrannical monarchy. The founding fathers believed that replacing the articles with The Constitution was the best way to give the central government enough power to carry out its tasks. In 1787 delegates from all 13 states met in Pennsylvania to begin amending the articles. This process revealed many of the similarities and differences that were contained within The Articles of Confederation and The Constitution.

The Articles provided no executive branch,so Congress had the complete authority to govern the U.S. The Constitution provided a president who would enforce the federal laws (Doc 5). The legislative branch was represented by one house, with each state having one vote. Also, no votes were needed to begin an important legislation. The Constitution created a bicameral legislature, and each state had equal representation in the Senate (Doc 5). Unlike the Articles where no votes were needed to enact a major legislation, the Constitution required a small amount of authority to proceed with a major legislation. The Articles of Confederation created no federal court system, so no states could sort out major affairs. The Constitution created national court system that could sort out the affairs between states and citizens. the different states had a changing population of Federalists and Antifederalists. One example of power regulation added into the Constitution is the checks and balances governmental system.This system of government in the branches made it so the three branches could regulate each other’s power. Another example of power regulation, is the addition of the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights are the first ten amendments of the Constitution which protected the individual rights of people. Again, the most major difference between the two guidelines of government was the shift of power. This shift of power altered the political environment of the United States as a young

The most significant issues that the United States had under the Articles of Confederation were: “managing the western expansion, foreign relations, and debt.” The first significant issue was with the western expansion as Americans relocated to the Nashville, western Pennsylvania, and Kentucky areas in mass numbers in the 1780s. The result of this meant that the areas were enhanced greatly that had western charters. At the time, the northern and southern areas (in the Appalachian Mountains and Mississippi River) had specific boundaries based on the original colonized charters which meant that the western area was the Pacific Ocean. The states that did not have part of the western area resented the condition and as a result, Maryland protested by not approving the Articles of Confederation unless the state of Virginia yielded its western land to the federal government which they did in 1784. However, their yielding was not without strings attached as they demanded that they be allowed to keep a small portion of the land reserve for their own use as a part of the deal which Congress had no choice but to accept. Eighteen years later in 1802, every state had yielded their western land to the federal government.

It all started after the Declaration of Independence during the time America was busy fighting the Revolutionary War, when Congress realized that they needed to form a plan to move forward and unite the thirteen states as a nation.

Rules would be the new topic of discussion at the end of the American Revolution amongst the newly formed Free states that won their independence from Britain. One huge question loomed over the Free states, how could they conduct a civilized way of living without another ruler such as the king of Britain here in America? There needed to be some sort of system that would generate a control to create a unified country. States were acting and conducting business as if each state was its own country and this left the America vulnerable on many fronts. Some of the main issues that surfaced were; How to divide powers between local and national governments? Which laws should be made, and by whom and who would enforce them? I will address some of the differences between the Constitution and The Articles of Confederation.

After fighting for our country against Great Britain in the American Revolution, the United States gained independence. We had to figure out how to govern ourselves since we would no longer be under the power of the monarch. The Articles of Confederation was the answer to our problems; even though it established a very weak central government and had many problems, it was our first constitution and our first step towards a solid government. Some of the problems with the Articles included that the Congress had no power to tax, no power to regulate commerce, no power to regulate domestic affairs, no power to enforce laws, and many more. The problems lead to troubles with the States which convinced the Continental Congress to create a convention of delegated people to revise them; this convention was called the Constitutional Convention. The Convention fixed these problems by throwing the Articles out altogether and creating a new Constitution.

The Articles of Confederation, which was considered the first constitution of the United States of America, and the US Constitution, which acts as the supreme law in the United States today, both are poles apart. In fact, it was only because of the weaknesses of the Articles that the present-day US Constitution was drafted. The Articles of Confederation or Articles was a written agreement which laid the guidelines for the functioning of the national government. It was drafted by the Continental Congress and sent to the thirteen original states for ratification in November 1777. Within a few years of its ratification, the Articles was subjected to severe criticism by the Founding Fathers of the United States. Problems with the document existed in plenty; the biggest issue being the fact that it left the national government at the mercy of states. Eventually, it was decided that this agreement had to be revised to suit the needs of the nation as a whole. The delegates at the Philadelphia Convention came to the conclusion that it was better to draft an entirely new constitution instead of revising the existing agreement, and thus came into existence the new US Constitution.

When the war finally came to an end in 1781, the economy was still suffering due to the lack of knowledge the states had on both economic and political matters. Since it was agreed upon that the nation wanted to be a democracy, the Constitution was shaped accordingly. The Articles of Confederation where written in order to establish a national government among the thirteen original colonies. There were many factors that caused of the crisis but the main reason was because of the Revolutionary war. The United States had taken on a substantial amount of debt in order for them to fund the war and the British Navy had targeted to destroy American ships, which led to a disruption in trade. The concerns that the colonists had with the Articles

After the Revolutionary War, the thirteen colonies of America gained their independence and had to create their own version of a government. In the year 1777, the Articles of Confederation, written by John Dickinson, served as the United State’s government. More importantly, it provided a basis for the Constitution and established what America needed to improve on, such as taxes and a form of currency. The Articles of Confederation gave the U.S. the ability to organize settlements, create peace, and improve government.

Although, the war was won and there were lots of flaws in the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution started shaping the laws and government in the nation. Democracy was something that may be hard for the people to handle according to Alexander Hamilton of New York, and it would also make them confused by the challenges of running the nation. The nation was on the European economic system which it had trouble and struggled. The people got married, raised families, bought slaves, they moved west and built new homes while daily life was going on. In the 1790 's the Politian 's was faced with a lot of questions such as could the leaders pulled the nation together and was the independence temporary? They all preached liberty and equality, but they went to great lengths to safeguard both slavery and taking control of Native American lands. During Thomas Jefferson 's reign as president stabilized and the land acquired helped start an economic revolution.

These three branches were intended to be regulated by a system of checks and balances that would prevent any of the branches from being in a position of too much authority. Compared to the Articles, the Constitution’s national government was significantly stronger. The legislature was made up of a lower chamber, also known as the Senate, based on equal representation while the upper chamber, also known as the House of Representatives, was population-based. Congress now had the authority to levy taxes through the lower chamber. The executive branch, another component to the national government, was made up of the president and officials they appointed in the executive department. The executive would act as a check on the legislature through the power of the veto. The judicial branch was made up of the Supreme Court and all federal courts created by Congress. The Supreme Court was given the final jurisdiction to resolve disputes in the governments at the state and national level as well as the ability to declare national laws “supreme” through the supremacy clause. The new structure to the national government was more stable than the one established in the Articles of Confederation and remain in use for several

The first problem is that under the Articles of Confederation Congress did not have enough power. Congress could not raise an army to defend the country, collect taxes from the people, regulate trade between states, or force states to follow laws. Under the Constitution Congress was given more power which included the power levy taxes in Article 1 Section 8.1. The General Welfare Clause granted Congress the power create laws as long as they were for best of the people.

Article 2 of the Articles of Confederation spoke on how “each state retains its sovereignty, freedom and, and every Power, Jurisdiction and right.”1 This created a confederation of states that were as independent as possible within congress. It was made because American colonists grew weary of a strong national government like the British crown they had been under for so many years. They did not want to create another government that grew apart as time went on. Furthermore, American colonists were strongly loyal to their states and as a result, the Articles of Confederation kept the central government weak, and made states as independent as possible. On the other hand, the U.S. Constitution unified the 13 states by creating different branches of government and consequently, did not give sole power to the states and Congress.

Kingdon & Thurber (1984) states that the Articles had a unicameral system of governance while the Constitution introduced the bicameral system. The unicameral system was based on the ideology of Congress while the Constitution divided the United States Congress into two: House of Representatives (lower house) and the Senate (upper house) (Gillespie & Lienesch, 1989). Furthermore, the Articles proposed one vote for every state without considering the size of the state while the Constitution preferred a system that every senator or representative was given one vote (Dougherty, 2006). The aim of the Constitution was to ensure a better representation and better alternatives of representing the people (Cain & Dougherty, 1999).