The Earliest Documents Of The United States Government

With the United States new found independence from Great Britain, its founding fathers realize from their historical experiences that a document of law needed to be crafted and established to preserve its new found independence, while maintaining order. However, the first document crafted by the founding fathers, the Articles of Confederation, did preserve the country new found independence but it did not maintain order. The Articles of Confederation described by many founding fathers to be a document that was crafted to satisfy needs of every state for its ratification, even when the document did not present a responsible democracy. The Articles of Confederation granted all national powers to the congress; however, it allowed each state

When the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution in 1787, the United States just had 13 states. The Founding Fathers believed that more states would want to join the Union in the future. They saw that it would be significant for new states to have the same form of government as the original states had. Since then there are now over 50 states that have similar characteristics which were developed centuries ago; although, resembling the creation of new ideas and inventions, current state government had many problems from being the way it is today, it also has many important features that benefit many people, as well as plays an important role in how American democracy and government works.

In May 1787, the Founding Fathers, who were made up of 55 delegates from one of the 13 states besides Rhode Island, met in Philadelphia for what would come to be called the Constitutional Convention [BRE]. When they met they intended to fix the consitution that was already in place, which was called the Articles of Confederation. This document had many weaknesses which ultimatly led to its downfall: it only had a legislative branch, so it could not hold trials or enforce laws, it could not raise taxes (it was able to raise money, however to do this the legislative branch had to ask the states for funds), it could not draft an army, so the federal government would have to use state militia, it could not control interstate or foreign commmerce,

The Constitutional Convention of 1787 and the subsequent ratification of the constitution proved to be a more significant event in American political history than the Declaration of Independence. Many of the american leaders believed we needed to a new, stronger government. They had to persuade the states that stronger government was the right direction to ensure the country’s success.They did that with the constitutional convention but, To sway the states in the right direction documents such as the Federalist papers led the states to ratify the new U.S. Constitution. Which then led to the U.S. Constitution that we still live by to the day.

Following the creation of the United States of America, a constitution of laws was desperately needed to create firm unity in the young nation. The original constitution that the Congress brought forth was the Articles of Confederation. The Articles of Confederation left most of the power with the state governments, which many people approved of. However, many problems were created by this law of the land. A convention was called in Philadelphia in 1787 to revise the Articles where they eventually scrapped it and wrote a new, but similar in ideals, document which is now known as the U.S. Constitution. The Constitution was, in fact, very different from the Articles of Confederation. So much so that they do not even appear to be similar in any

The Constitutional Convention was held in May 25 1787 in Philadelphia to discuss revising the Article of Confederation. Delegates from the various states met in Philadelphia and George Washington president was elected to preside over Convention. However, the result of convention wasn’t likely what the purpose of convention to revise the Article of Confederation because what it ended up doing could not answer successfully the question of slavery and was creating a new constitution, which was the United States Constitution. There were three plans submitted for government structure which were Virginia, New Jersey, and Connecticut Compromise.

Before the constitution became the law of the land there was the Articles of Confederation. The Articles of Confederation was the first constitution of the United States, and the first form of government established by the U.S. Under the Articles of Confederation the government consisted of a congress of delegates chosen by state legislatures. Congress was also unicameral, or a single house legislature. Each state had the same amount of power regardless of size or population. The powers to make, administer, and enforce laws were all placed with Congress. The government did not consist of a President or executive branch, instead the executive power was spread among several committees of congressmen. The articles granted certain limited powers to Congress. The Congress could not raise money through taxes, therefore it relied on contributions from the states, which was not reliable. Passing laws required approval of at least nine of the thirteen states, and amending a document required approval of all thirteen states. Congress had no power to regulate trade between the states or internationally. There was no national army, so the government relied on the individual states to establish a military.

Following the United States’ independence from Great Britain, delegates from each collective state set out to establish a body to govern the newly formed nation. From this came the Articles of Confederation, which was officially ratified in 1781. The Articles of Confederation proved to be a landmark in government for those days because it was a model of what a loose confederation could be. However, this soon failed because the official

     In the hot, humid summer of 1787 state delegates met for the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia and drafted a new frame of government for the United States: the United States Constitution. A new federal system of government was set forth which distributed powers between the state and federal government and created three branches of government as checks and balances for each other. The new Constitution also gave the new government the power to both tax and regulate commerce.

When the United States declared itself a sovereign nation, the Articles of Confederation were drafted to serve as the nations first Constitution.Under these Articles, the states held most of the power; but due to an almost absent centralized government, colonists were ill-equipped to deal with such practices as regulating trade both between states and internationally, levying taxes, solving inter-state disputes, negotiating with foreign nations, and most importantly enforcing laws under the current notion of "Congress". Realizing that there were several deficiencies in the current system of self-government, the states appointed delegates to ratify the situation and come up with a way to attain the aforementioned practices they needed to

In May of 1789, the Constitutional Convention was held in to Philadelphia to get rid of the Articles of Confederation and make a new constitution. Since the Articles Of Confederation was weak and did not have enough power to have the national functioning well. The delegates want the new constitution to have a strong central government and be able to hold the nation together. The hardest part in creating a new constitution for the delegates was to prevent any type of tyranny that let any person or group of people or branch or level of government to have too much power. Eventually when the constitution was finished, it managed to guard tyranny by dividing

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.

In 1776, when the United States declared independence from Britain, the new country needed a set of laws to apply to all of the states to replace the earlier British rule. The colonists, however, were concerned that if the United States put too much power in the central government the states rights would vanish. Therefore, the first form of government, the Articles of Confederation, gave too much power to the states and insufficient power to the central government. States could create their own money and refuse federal taxes, which caused many tribulations and almost destroyed the new country. In 1787, delegates from twelve states came together to revise the Articles

After the Revolution, the States adopted their own constitutions, many of which contained a Bill of Rights. The Americans still faced the challenge of creating a central government for their new nation. In 1777 the Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation, which were ratified in 1781. Under the Articles, the states retained their “sovereignty, freedom and independence,” while the national government was kept weak and inferior. Over the next few years it became evident that the system of government that had been chosen was not strong enough to completely settle and defend the frontier, regulating trade, currency and commerce, and organizing thirteen states into one union.

When the government first achieved independence from England there were thirteen individual governments. They had an agreement called the Articles of Confederation that specified how each would interact with the others and manage the states. Despite the ratification by every state the agreement soon became problematic. What ensued was the meeting of state delegates, known as the Constitutional Convention, who planned to revise the problems. As a result the U.S. Constitution was fashioned to take its place. The idea was to ultimately federalize the States. That means each State remains an individual government but also agrees to be part of a Union. Thus created a federal government that would handle those things that are best controlled by a central government, which acts on behalf of the many States. An example would be the Navy and Army. The Federal Government has the right to raise and maintain a full time standing military. The Federal government is not limited to just the enumerated powers granted to Congress. It was also arranged that the national government would have powers not specifically stated in the Constitution, called implied powers. Although popular