What Are The Challenges Under The Articles Of Confederation

What were the central problems of the Articles of Confederation? How did the delegates to the Philadelphia Convention address them? Finally, how did the delegates resolve the three contentious political issues: the representation of large and small states, slavery, and state sovereignty?

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

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 developed dominance in separate states. Every state was evenly represented, and was granted one vote. Out of those 13 states only 9 states had to come to a “unanimous agreement,” in order for new amendments to be imposed. Some of the strengths were, “the power to make war & peace, handle foreign relations, Indian affairs, and adjudicate disputes between the states” (Creating the U.S. ppt I). An additional strength was The Articles had the control to print and mint money. However, I do not believe this was for their best interest. “Continental Paper Currency,” was valueless in other states; therefore, each state had to use their own money.

The Articles of Confederation were developed after the Revolutionary War, and were a good idea to help set standards for America. However, they had some major problems that needed to be solved in order for America to become a strong nation. After these problems were addressed the Constitution was developed.

There were a lot of problems with the Articles of Confederation. Some of which made it so bad to the point of people rebelling against the government. There were states taxing each other way too much. Some states struggled to get any kind of help because the majority of the states has to vote to help a state before it can get help. There were also strengths, like every state followed its own laws and jurisdiction. There were more weaknesses than strengths.

One of the main disadvantages of the Articles of Confederation was that it encouraged a weak central government. Because nine out of thirteen states had to agree upon a law in order for it to be established, very few laws were passed. Amendments of the Articles of Confederation were never passed because the vote had to be unanimous. Not many decisions were made and the Congress generally only had the power to make treaties, deal with foreign affairs, and declare war. The Articles of Confederation read, “Each state shall contain its sovereignty, freedom and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right…” (Article II) The states had the most power and the Congress very rarely made decisions that affected the internal affairs of the states or country. There was only one house of Congress where each state only had one vote. This did not allow the bigger states with a greater population to have an advantage over the smaller states, which one could perceive as unfair in certain circumstances. Also, there was no judicial branch, which meant that if a case was not solved on a state level, it had nowhere to go. Fundamentally, the states held the most power. The lack of power within the Congress led to economic crisis.

The Articles of Confederation were placed as a form of temporary government. However, the Articles did not address the many problems the United States was having and going to have at the time. Therefore The Articles of Confederation were one of the weakest forms of functioning governments.

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 Article of Confederation was a written document that was put in place in 1777 after the 13 colonies had gained independence from the British. During the time in which the Articles of Confederation were still in place; there were problems arising like: the Continental Army not being paid for their services, the struggling economy, and the people wanting to overthrow the government. But events that had taken place had brought the elite for a Constitutional Convention. In the Convention; the elite had discussed the problem that the Articles had caused for them and for the people. The elites during the convention had scrapped the Articles and wrote a new document; which was the Constitution. The Articles of Confederation had a lot of weakness, and this pushed the leaders to hold the Constitutional Convention, also the leaders had to make sure that the people didn't as much power over the government as they did.

First, the Articles of Confederation were viewed as an overall weakness. It did not allow congress to obtain really any power over the people; therefore we had a weak central government. Congress was not granted the power that they needed in order to keep things in order,“Probably the most unfortunate part of the Articles of confederation were that the central government could not prevent one state from discriminating against other states in the quest for foreign commerce.” (Ginsberg, et. al. 2014: 35). States were rebelling and our new found country was in chaos and our Congress was not able to prevent states from discriminating against other states. For example, another downfall to this document was that, “The Articles of Confederation were concerned

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.

The new Constitution fixes the problems that we have had under the Articles of Confederation. We have not had anyone oversee and make sure that laws are carried out. The Constitution sets up a president to do this. Do not fear that he would be a king, though, for he is not to have all power. It should be shared with two other government branches. One of these branches, called the Judicial Branch, adds national courts, which will help people settle disputes too big for a state court. Congress was left very little power at all under the Articles of Confederation. With the Constitution, Congress will be able to control the printing and sending of money in the States. This will allow Congress to pay off their debts remaining after the war. Congress

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.

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.