The Articles Of Confederation Of The United States
1531 WordsOct 29, 20147 Pages
The Articles of Confederation was one of the first official documents of the United States. The purpose of this article was to create a confederation of states whereby each state retained its sovereignty, freedom, and independence. Every state was as independent as possible with the Federal government only responsible for the common defense, security of liberties, and the general welfare. There were several problems that soon became obvious with time, as the Articles took effect. The Articles contained more weaknesses than strengths which let the authority to get rid of them and create a new document.
The strengths of the Articles were few. Some of the aims it managed to accomplish were to bring all the states together and made them form…show more content… When the population of a certain region reached 60000, including women the territory could seek admission to the confederation. The Ordinance also banned slavery from the region.
Not only that Congress had the power to deal with foreign affairs and authority to declare war, and make peace, alliance and sign treaties. It persuaded all the states to coordinate between each other and also assisted them to settle their prolong disputes. The Department of Treasury, the Department of Postal Service and the Department of Foreign Affairs were established. Postal services and coin money was introduced for the first time.
The articles of confederation had many drawbacks though. Firstly it gave too much power to the state and not enough to the central government. The central government wasn’t able to pass laws and impose taxes if all the states did not approve, and the revenue had to come through taxes which the states would collect and submit to the central government so there were problem generating revenues. There was no power to regulate commerce or trade between the states, each state could put taxes on trade between states There was only one vote per states, regardless of its size, Amendments to the Articles of Confederation required a unanimous vote. Approval of 9 of 13 states was required to pass a law in Congress. Each state has own paper money and they