The Articles Of Confederation With The New Constitution Of 1787

The Articles of Confederation was the first system of government that the united states ever put into force, and is the only one they ever wrote besides the constitution. The articles was created due to a need for the United States to unite during the american revolution, and was basically a loosely bound union of states, so it was obvious that this was essentially just to semi-unite the states in order to fight the british, and they would form a more stable form of government after the fact, which they did when they wrote the constitution. I will now list the provisions of the Articles of Confederation.

The Articles of Confederation was first written in 1777. It was passed by the Confederation of Congress. Congress decided that they needed a firm government to organize the states as a whole. At least that was their primary goal. Since each state had separates rules. The Articles of Confederation was later ratified by each state in 1781. It was “America’s first federal constitution” (Keene 138). The confederation had a few strengths but many weaknesses. The nation faced many economic and political issues that lead people to controversy.

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.

For instance, they were both written with the same intentions of creating new country of freedom for many people. It also contains the same ideals of government that the Articles had, just in a different format. Also, both central governments had the right to raise an army and build up a navy. However, this seems to be where more differences start to appear. One glaring difference between the two is that the Articles made the states seem like a friendly cooperation while the Constitution firmly defined the unity of the states. Also, the Constitution resolved the problems that the central government had when referring to levying taxes and controlling trade. Another importance between the two is the number of Congress votes each state had. During the time of the Articles of Confederation, there was only one congressional vote per state. On the other hand, after the Constitution was put in place, each state had one vote per delegate elected into Congress. On a final note, while many of the ideals behind the Articles of Confederation and the U.S. Constitution were the same, the two documents were different in many ways and created two very distinct forms of

“In November 1777 the Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation, the United States first written constitution.”(Ginsberg, et. al. 2014: 35). The Articles of Confederation played a big role in the drafting of the United States’ new constitution. The articles were our United States’ first written governing document. The Articles of Confederation solved some problems by creating at least a minimal amount of government at the time, but it also created some problem for our country because we did not have enough government. As time went on, the Founding Fathers found the issues with the Articles of Confederation, sought ways to solve those issues, and created the Constitution as a lasting governing document.

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.

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.

The Articles of Confederation was needed to conduct foreign affairs, such as war. The Confederation wanted to tax states for their whole population, whites and blacks. The southern states did not approve of this because there were a larger number of slaves in the south. With the Articles of Confederation, there was only the legislature which existed. No president and no judicial branch. To amend the articles of all thirteen states, all would have to agree, therefore, this would bring a great deal of difficulties. (History.com, Articles of Confederation)

The colonies spent 400 million fighting against a form of government for the freedom to make there own decisions. This could be the reason it took a long period of time to form the constitution. The Constitution was put in the place of the Articles of Confederation. This was put in place to guard against tyranny from happening. Tyranny is when you have one person has all the power and mistreated it. The Constitution guards against tyranny by making sure the states have power of local things, power is split with the three branches of the government, the three branches of the government have a little control over each other, and that large and small states have equal say and no small state would be left out.

Executive and judiciary views differed vastly between the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution. The Articles of Confederation preferred no separate executive branch where the constitution called for a separate executive branch. Although both agreed on electing one of their own as president the Articles elected annually while the constitution elected every four years. The biggest difference was the roles that the president played. Under the Articles of Confederation the president possessed no power of veto, nor did he

After the Constitutional Convention in 1787, the United States Government was reorganized under the Constitution. This gave the federal government far more power than did the Articles of Confederation, which invested power within the states. Basically, the Constitution created three branches of government (Executive, Judicial, and Legislative) which would work together to run the government. To make sure that there was an equal balance of power among the branches, a system of checks and balances was devised so that each branch could limit the power of the others. It is important to note that "the doctrine of separation of powers is not established by any constitutional provision [but] rather it emerges from he framers'

Compare and contrast the Articles of confederation and the Constitution, especially in regard to the specific powers granted to the national government.The formation and ideals of the Articles of Confederation and its successor, the Unites States Constitution, varied from each other in terms of a stronger or weaker federal government in dealing with issues. The Constitution gave more power to the federal government, while the Articles of Confederation involved a very weak government with primary rights interests of the individual states as the focus. Both gave Congress legislative power and set up departments that would eventually be incorporated into the president’s cabinet. The formation of the Articles of Confederation was of the

No matter what it is the beginning of a new business or anything there are going to be bumps in the road. Starting a new country will have the same problems. This was apparent in the early formation of this great country. Weather it be differences in the way the people thing the country should be run, and the mistakes on how it actually works. The political parties have the conflicts that show we are going to have to grow, and adapt to an ever-changing society. From rebellions to political parties the early formation of the United States was full of turmoil and learning. The steps we have had to take may have caused many problems in the beginning and the loss of life.

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.