The Flaws Of The Articles Of Confederation

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 1775, America began one of the most important moments of its life as well as history overall, the America Revolution. This war was fought to free the new colonies from the tyranny of the British monarchy and the unfair way it treated them. The fight was long and hard, but in the end the battle was won and the colonies became their own nation, left to rule under their own circumstances and set up their own government. Ironically when it came to setting this up, was in some ways, more difficult than the physical battle that came and went. The first attempt at a government blueprint came as “The Articles of confederation” which was the first written constitution and attempted to unify America under a set of rules that the citizens would better follow and appreciate. Martin Kelley quotes it as a creation of a “confederation of states whereby each state retained "its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right . . . not . . . expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled." (Kelley). The failure came from its creation of independent states and as Ted Brackemyer puts it “…the lack of a strong national government in the Articles of Confederation led to three broad limitations.” These limits were economic disorganization, lack of central leadership, and legislative inefficiencies (Brackemyer).

Following the affects of the weak Articles of Confederation set in place in 1777, a change in government was in order after the articles had proven their inability to control or tax the American people. The creation of The Constitution began a new era in American Government and set a new formation of laws and separation of power. The transition from the two very different systems of government was a turning point in American history and led to the type of Government we have to this day. After the Revolutionary War and America’s separation from England, it was now up to the American People to decide the kind of government they wanted. After winning the war, the last thing that they wanted, was to have another government that would abuse the

When Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation on November 15, 1777, it contained a preamble and 13 articles. It was agreed upon that this document would be used to represent the 13 states that were established at that time. There were many flaws that existed within the Articles of Confederation. The articles denied Congress the power to collect taxes, regulate interstate commerce and enforce laws, which are currently used in present day to fund and govern our ever expanding and growing country.

How did the Articles of Confederation divide power between the nation and the states?What did this division reveal about the nature of the federal system of governance in the early 1780s? The Articles established a pragmatic division of power between Congress and the states. Congress would make foreign policy and decide major questions of national security, while the state's regulated their own domestic affairs-or “internal police.” But the real problem was not that the states were negligent; it was rather that he war had imposed greater burdens than they could handle. Even so, many delegates had already decided that Congress needed more power than the Articles bestowed. The Articles of Confederation made it so that the Congress would be higher the the states, but the states would never ratify such an amendment, and even if they did, any attempt to enforce it would create more problems than it resolved. This just showed how the federal system worked in the 1780s and that people tried to make the Constitution work out, but it did take some time to do so.

In 1776, the Declaration of Independence, drafted by Thomas Jefferson, was formally adopted. The American Revolution had already been going on with the battles of Lexington and Concord over a year prior, but the first government of the United States is the Articles of Confederation, a constitution based on Republican ideas and democracy. The Continental Congress approved the Articles of Confederation in 1777. It was adopted, written by John Dickinson, but there was a delay in ratifying it by the states. States like Virginia and Massachusetts had claimed a bunch of land stretching from the East Coast all the way to the Pacific Ocean as part of their colonial charters. States like Maryland and Pennsylvania, who did not have these land claims, did not want to ratify this new national government until the land is relinquished. It was not until in 1781 when the states officially ratified the Articles of Confederation. From 1781 to 1789, the Articles of Confederation failed and had created problems in political, economic, and foreign policies, making this new national government an ineffective government.

The Articles of Confederation established the first government that unified the thirteen states that fought in the American Revolution. This documented created the structure for the confederation of the 13 states and went into effect on March 1, 1781 and lasted only eight years. The purpose of the document was to create a confederation of where each state kept its own sovereignty. Every state had its own independence as much as possible while the central government of the U.S. was only responsible for the common defense, the security of liberties, and the general welfare of the states. The purpose of the document was to keep the national government as weak as possible. However, this led to several issues to become apparent once the Articles was put into effect.

Economic issues affected the founding of the United States and revealed basic problems that led to the failure of the Articles of Confederation, were chief complaints in the Declaration of Independence, and affected the structure of the new government in the Constitution.

The Constitution of the United States of America was framed in part by The Articles of

The Articles of Confederation started as a concept Americans had in an attempt to federalize the 13 colonies to become a stronger unified nation against Great Britain. The Revolutionary War had broken out and up until 1776, there was no structure of government that unified the colonies. The colonies were looking for a centralized government to oust the powerful British influence they were fighting against. Each state still had a sense of singleness recognizing they were citizens of their own state and not a part of a whole central government. So in 1776, the Second Continental Congress named 13 delegates to meet and draft an agreement to form a structuralized government with rules and laws to govern and protect the thirteen colonies. Little

The Constitution is our nation's most important and famous document and is the much more polished version of The Articles of Confederation, which were ultimately a disaster for our nation. The Constitution is a far better outline for our nation's government because it gives the central government the necessary powers to run the country efficiently without disregarding the rights of the citizens.

I support the federalists opinion that the ⅔ ratification is a good idea because if they just do whatever they can to get the standard foundations of their government set up then after that they can worry about the specifics. This will give them more time to ensure that all of their specific laws and decisions will benefit the people and that everyone agrees with them.

Considering the unsuccessful Articles of Confederation, it was vital to construct a better statute under which government would function. This new law would have to incorporate values of a Republic, and the ultimate goal of unifying the nation through the creation of a stronger national government, while still acknowledging states’ rights. James Madison, who is accredited for being the “father of the Constitution,” paved the road for the development of the modern Constitution. However, many feared this strong central government would inevitably turn into a tyranny, much like the one they had just fought to escape from. Eventually, after many conventions, the Constitution, which incorporated compromises between states, was finally adopted, and calculated into it were several ways a tyrannical government could be prevented.

Last year, our new government was formed. We agreed to what the Articles had said. It seems that now we are having issues with what we had once agreed with. In this newsletter, I will only address four of the most problematic things in the Articles of Confederation. However there are many more that will not be brought to light today.

The Articles of Confederation, a written agreement that ensured each state’s sovereignty, freedom and independence, led America to victory over the British centralized government. During the late eighteenth century, the empowered government terrified the Americans, hence the thirteen colonies decided to spread governance powers equally to all functional states. The states had absolute dominance over the Congress due to the Articles of Confederation. While the localized power of states seemed to be promising, the system posed great threat to the major components of a democratic government, which are coercion, revenue, and legitimacy (Lecture 1 - The Roots of Government). The system of localized power did not ensure legitimacy, which referred to people’s recognition of national government. Congress’s lack of power to control each state’s actions caused great chaos. Eventually, national government’s lack of power and inability to unify the states exposed multiple flaws in the Articles of Confederation; consequently, a new supreme law, the Constitution was established by the founding fathers. The new supreme law successfully altered the imbalanced system into a novel democratic government.