The United States of America was not always the well structured superpower it is today. After the colonists decided to break away from Great Britain and fight for independence; no one knew how difficult it would be to create a new governing structure, the newly independent colonists knew that they wanted a governing system that would be completely different. Representatives at the time constructed the infamous document known as The Articles of Confederation, which had little power. It neglected to incorporate a judicial and executive branch. The only powers it entitled Congress were limited and the new nation was struggling to stay afloat. The states completely ran the country at the time and did not cooperate for the common good. …show more content…
Then my junior year of high school is when my beliefs and opinions started to take shape. I became extremely fascinated with politics and landed my first internship with republican State Senator Guy Reschenthaler. I have realized that younger generations follow in the footsteps of their parents in political views but I was different, my parents are both democrats and I am a republican.
Throughout history America has struggled with power not only with outside nations, such as Great Britain, but within itself, between central and state government and republicans versus democrats. Central and state government still have a power struggle between them that varies from same-sex marriage to the legalization of narcotics, but which form of government can ultimately have the sovereignty it so desires? Same sex marriage was legalized from the central government but did they have the right to make all fifty states abide by this law; a majority of people supported it, however, a lot of people did not think it was right that all states had to conform without a say. Power is tricky when dealing with a whole nation and then dealing with subdivisions (states), there is plenty of diversity between each state and region, enough to have people question who should have more control. How can the central government know what is best for each individual state; on the other hand, the states can throw the balance of the economy, military, and international business into turmoil if they act
During the years 1781 to 1789, the Articles of Confederation was the bases of the current government. This confederation was set up to create a weak government, leaving main power in the state legislatures. The people of the new United States did not foresee having a strong central government in fear of a monarchy such as that of Great Britain's. To a significant extent, the government under these articles were ineffective due to the lack of power in Congress and control of foreign relations. A contribution to the downfall of the Articles of Confederation is the insufficiency of it.
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.
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
After the American colonies won their freedom from Great Britain needed to create a new government. The Articles of Confederation were developed, bestowing America with its first official government. The Articles were composed of many restrictions creating an inadequate body of government. One of the main reasons the articles didn't work was from the lack of a strong central government the states received too much liberty and freedom, and on the other hand congress was weak and restricted. The government did not have enough power to govern all the states efficiently under the articles of confederation, it couldn't tax or regulate trade . From the time period when the Articles were constructed in 1781, to when they were discarded in 1789, the
They decided to create the Articles of Confederation, a constitution that gave little power to the federal government and a large amount to the individual states. This created weaknesses in the U.S.A. They had found out that the Article of Confederation created a central government that was too weak to really do what was needed. The framers also chose federalism as a way from preventing tranny, and that was so not needed. They wanted to split up the power of government between the states and the central government so that neither level of government could become too powerful. They felt like splitting up power was a good way to protect people from a government tranny.
The United States at the time was breaking away from mother England and failing to become an independent power. There wasn’t any agreement among the ‘founding fathers’ on how the U.S. should move forward, should they follow the government structure of England and appoint a king and have a monarchy system, or create a whole different form of government. Well we all know how that ended up, but it was a long road to making it a successful government. First, the people in charge like Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson and George Washington made plans of appointing a president and giving this person guidelines and certain responsibilities to follow. As laid out in the Constitution. Each branch of government had/s to abide by these set articles. And with that, the system of checks and balances comes into play which keeps every form of the American government in line. I don’t think that the American government is a perfect system, but I also wouldn’t change anything about
Following the American Revolution, the necessity of the formation of a new central government was evident. The nation was split over exactly how much power could be appointed to the federal government without it becoming tyrannical. Finally, at the Constitutional Congress, the Articles of Confederation were created to bind the nation under a relatively weak federal government. However, these articles led to United States to a bumpy start as they did not allow for effective government from 1781 to 1789. The weakness of the Articles can be seen in the conflict over territorial claims, economic struggles, and general lack of control that the federal government help in the period of which the United States was governed under them.
Before the U.S Constitution was ever set in motion, there was a constitution called the Articles of Confederation. The Articles of Confederation followed after America gained their independence from the British. This constitution gave limited power to a central government, and gave state governments, major authority. Whereas the new constitution intended to generate a powerful government in which various states could unite under a central authority. The administration of the new government wanted to implement new approaches to help expand to Western lands and to develop a stronger economy. However, the fact that the new government was federal and not state, angered many people. So, with countless crowds opposing the new government, why were
In "Address to the People of the United States," Benjamin Rush states, "The confederation...[was] formed under very unfavorable circumstances. We had just emerged from a corrupted monarchy...most of us were ignorant of...republics..." During this time, the government had too much power and Congress did want to make the citizens feel oppressed. The Articles of Confederation gave the government the power to make decisions and pass laws. However, the states could reject the laws because the government had no way to enforce them. The delegates amended this conflict in the Constitution by creating federalism, therefore balancing the power between the states and the federal government. The single branch of government was divided into the executive, judicial, and legislative branches to ensure that the power would be distributed evenly and there would be no corruption.
This form of government they created was called a constitutional republic. The Articles of Confederation gave power to the states instead of equally shared power. In order to make an amendment the Federal Government had to get a yes from all thirteen states. This made it very hard to get anything done.
“…thirteen powerful, independent, disunited States are in the habit off…refusing to obey our national Congress…I pray that we can act in time to prevent the bad things we fear may happen.” George Washington wrote this in a letter to John Jay (Doc 3). Even the man who is immediately thought of when talking about the start of our nation thought that without a new set of guidelines to run our country by, the young country would eventually break apart and the fighting of the higher powers would begin again. The reasons George thought this way was because of how week the Articles of Confederation actually were, also because all the different foreign problems that the country as a whole faced, and another big
After the American Revolutionary War, the men in the Second Continental Congress were faced with a monumental challenge, creating a document that would democratically frame the new United States government in the spirit of liberty and freedom. While they spent much time and effort writing and ratifying this document, they were hindered by past experiences and prejudices against their previous mother country, Great Britain. The memories of imperial Britain, still fresh in the minds of the ex-colonists, caused them to include certain concepts of the Articles of Confederation that would prove detrimental to the functionality of the federal government. Although the American people desired to retain state sovereignty, they fashioned a form of government that bestowed excessive powers to the states, so severely that the national government could not effectively govern them
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'
The Framers of the United States Constitution ultimately decided to give more power to the Federal government rather than the state governments for many reasons. There were many problems with the articles that caused instability in the government, and even a rebellion. Then there’s the Federal government who lacked powers to do anything much because the people were too scared to make the Federal government strong. Lastly, there was the State government who had either too much power or they had power that the Federal government should have. There were a lot of problems with the Articles that needed to be addressed , most of which were addressed.
The Constitution placed a great deal of power back into the hands of a strong, central government much like that of a monarchy. “The extraordinarily powerful national government that emerged from Philadelphia possessed far more than the additional congressional powers that were required to solve the United States’ difficulties” (Wood 151). The U.S. government was extremely revolutionary though, in the way that it viewed and handled sovereignty. “Unlike the British in relation to their House of Commons, the American people never surrendered to any political institution…their full and final sovereign power” (Wood 160). Throughout the entire American struggle to establish a suitable government, the citizens maintained their ability to influence policy in a way that the British never could.