The United States Constittution Essay examples

While the Articles of Confederation unified the American colonies for the first time, the individual states had a hard time allowing a central government to solely control their territory. Due to fear of an all powerful monarchy like the one they had experienced in England the colonies were wary of allowing a central government certain powers. These certain powers included control of commerce, ability to tax, and even the ability to act directly upon individual citizens of a state. While the Articles provided a loose confederation to unify the new country, they were only a temporary solution due to their obvious weaknesses in several areas. The Articles of Confederation were essentially

The “Recreation” of the Articles of Confederation Purposely created to establish a weak central government, the structure of the Articles of Confederation led to serious problems in the United States Government. The leading problems that led to weak government were an absence of a leader, giving the states the power to make their decisions, and not having enough representation per state. With the complaints from the citizens of the government being too weak for a nation, the delegates from all over the states joined to improve the Articles of Confederation. In early 1788 the Constitution was ratified and replaced the Articles of Confederation, fixing all of the major complaints and while adding more structure to the government, such as the three branches. Ratified by all thirteen states in 1781, the Articles of Confederation was established.

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

The national government created under the Articles of Confederation was very weak. in fact, it was more like a treaty or an organization similar to today's United Nations more than a country. The individual states kept their independence completely. It was as if they were all their own separate countries. They sent representatives to decide matters of national importance, but there were no elections. These representatives were chosen by the states, usually the legislatures. There was no judicial or executive branch. The only thing that the national government had the power to do was go to war and conduct foreign affairs, such as entering into treaties. The national government did not have the power to tax-- this was left up to the states,

The feebleness of Congress was a major weakness of the Articles of Confederation. When the Articles of Confederation were adopted in 1777, they created a “loose confederation” of states (Pageant, 181). This meant that each state was independent and sovereign, linked by Congress only to deal with common problems and foreign affairs. Congress was meant to be part of a united central power of the government, but due to the abuse suffered from the king, the states so limited the powers of the central government to the point of powerlessness.

Due to issues including enforcement, taxation, and voting requirements, the Articles of Confederation proved to be an ineffective and somewhat useless form of government. One problem existed which caused the Articles to not require the states to follow any laws Congress passed, resulting from the declarations being unable to be enforced. Because of this, Congress was unable to control the states. Every state owned the ability to pass any laws that said state decided to pass, without anything holding them in check. Also, the inability of Congress to collect taxes from the citizens, which proves to be the only way for a small government like the young America to effectively make money. Because Congress did not control the ability to tax Americans,

    The supremacy clause states that the United States Constitution, treaties, federal laws, and federal regulations are the supreme law of the land, if this didn’t exist then states would have more power over the federal government.

In the Constitution, the Supreme Court is the overriding law of the land. The Supreme Court can overrule the decisions made by the likes of a state or appeals court. The Constitution is clear in its attempts to unify the nation and strengthen the federal government, all while maintaining the freedoms of the states and the feeling of equality. Though the Constitution is written in a vague way, leaving it to be open for interpretation and allowing it to conform with the changes that time brings to society. But because of the uncertainty of the document, it has often been misinterpreted, or has caused a wide array of viewpoints of a certain issues. The most memorable example being that of the Civil War, but today it is even more prevalent when we try to relate modern day issues to the ambiguous instructions left to us by our forefathers.

Compare the strengths and weaknesses of the Articles of confederation to those of the Constitution. Which document did a better job at protecting liberties? Running a government? Explain your answer with specific examples.

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.

| In Massachusetts Bay, men who owned property could go to a town meeting and vote.

Each type of government holds different views as to the role the leaders and citizens should perform in their country .Different types of government include, oligarchy where the government is run by the best leaders, Tyranny, where they believe those in power should have complete control over its people. In the United States of America, we believe in democracy, rule by the majority. The main problem with our type of government is maintaining it. Our government and its citizens have lost sight of their roles and responsibilities, in government.

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.

The American Revolution was when the British colonies in America revolted against British rule for being taxed by people not even living on their land and gained independence by overthrowing British imperial rule under King George III. The French Revolution was a period of social and political upheaval in France, marking the decline of powerful monarchies and churches and the rise of democracy and nationalism. The French Revolution began less than two decades after the American Revolution. In many ways, the American experience was an inspiration for the citizens of France. But the people of the two countries had different situations and had different concerns, which influenced the way each revolution began, progressed, and ended.

issues of all kind. The country I was born in did not guarantee freedom of