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Comparison of the federal form of government to the articles of confederation
Strength and weaknesses of the article of confederation
American revolution
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“At the same time American’s were struggling to win their independence on the battlefield, they were also struggling to create new institutions of government to replace the British system they had repudiated.” – (Page 61) After the American Revolution, many had not yet considered themselves an American. They identified themselves with the states in which they lived. Many were not ready for a centralized (National) government, but wanted “a political system where the power came from the people and not from some supreme authority.” – (Page 62). Additionally, the colonies (now states) believed that the government should be republican. Individual states wrote the first constitutions for their state, except for Connecticut and Rhode Island. They simply deleted the references to England and the king from their charters and adopted those documents as their constitution. Consequently, “Americans were growing concerned about the apparent instability of their new stage governments, almost every state had either rewritten or drawn up a completely new constitutional document.” – (Pages 62-63) With the problems the individuals came the Articles of Confederation. This document was responsible for the conveyance of legal process within the United States. There were growing issues …show more content…
James Beard also “pointed out, for example, that George Washington was the wealthiest landowner in the country, and had provided significant funding towards the Revolution. Beard traces the Constitutional guarantee that the newly formed nation would pay its debts to the desire of Washington and similarly situated lenders to have their costs refunded.”-
It was the mid-late 1700s, and America had finally achieved and received independence from Great Britain. Peace in America on the other hand, not so much. After gaining independence, the Articles of Confederation were made as a system of government for the United States, but gave very imbalanced power between federal and state levels. For example, on the federal level, the national government couldn't force a state to pay taxes. To try to amend the Articles, in 1787, a meeting made up of delegates representing the states was called up, but instead, what would be created is what we now know as the Constitution. But how exactly did this document remedy the flaws of the Articles, and prevent tyranny from unjust amounts and usage of power? The Constitution helped stop tyranny in government with a
At the time of the convention, farmers were the debtor class and were prone to revolt. Farmers, who lived all across the United States, sought debt relief and tax relief (Beard, 28). The weight of the debt at the time was crushing small American farmers who were being forced to pay their debts by selling their property for less than its value (Holton, 90). These debtors sought relief in many legal forms. For example, they asked for the “abolition of imprisonment, paper money, laws delaying the collection of debts, propositions requiring debtors to accept land in lieu of specie at a valuation fixed by a board of arbitration” (Beard, 28). However, they also sought relief through revolt (ex. Shays’ Rebellion) (Beard 28). Their desires contrast those of the creditors, stockholders, manufacturers, and shippers of their time (Beard, 29).
The thirteen American colonies were under the British control until they declared their independence from British in 1776. A year after the declaration of independence, the continental congress established the Article Of Confederation, which was the first constitution in the United States. According to manythings.org, “During that war, the colonies were united by an agreement called the Articles of Confederation”. It was later ratified in 1781, but it had many negatives because it was very weak. According to manythings.org, the Articles Of Confederation did not: organize a central government, create courts or decide laws, nor provide an executive to carry out the laws, and all it did was just create a Congress. This congress was very useless
The Articles of Confederation were approved by Congress on November 15, 1777 and ratified by the states on March 1, 1781. It was a modest attempt by a new country to unite itself and form a national government. The Articles set up a Confederation that gave most of the power to the states. Many problems arose and so a new Constitution was written in 1787 in Independence Hall. The new Constitution called for a much more unified government with a lot more power. Let us now examine the changes that were undertaken.
After the Revolutionary War, the newly formed United States still had a major task ahead of them. They had to form a new government that would satisfy the demands of the people and ensure the success of their nation. The Articles of Confederation was the first system of government that was proposed and put into effect. This attempt at creating a system that protected the people form a strong central government ultimately failed but was an important step in the development of the current government system. The weaknesses presented by the Articles of Confederation helped lead to reforms that made the Constitution successful. Both the Articles and the Constitution demonstrate the struggles that the colonists went through with the British and their desire to establish a new tyranny free government.
During and after the turmoil of the American Revolution, the people of America, both the rich and the poor, the powerful and the meek, strove to create a new system of government that would guide them during their unsure beginning. This first structure was called the Articles of Confederation, but it was ineffective, restricted, and weak. It was decided to create a new structure to guide the country. However, before a new constitution could be agreed upon, many aspects of life in America would have to be considered. The foremost apprehensions many Americans had concerning this new federal system included fear of the government limiting or endangering their inalienable rights, concern that the government’s power would be unbalanced, both within
Yes, the Constitutional Convention of 1787 was essential to preserve the Union, as the Articles of Confederation did a meager job establishing a stable America. Only a handful of people from the entire nation were pleased with the issues addressed in the Articles of Confederation. This document didn’t unite the nation, but created more differences among the people. The Articles of Confederation failed to properly allocate power between Congress and the states, giving the states supreme control, rather than Congress. This unbalance in society left each individual state on their own, besides the alliances they could form within each other (creating even more rifts within the country). The Congress didn’t hold the power to tax or create a national military, navy, and army, which didn’t allow America to strengthen as a nation. By vesting these powers in the state, the Articles of Confederation technically created thirteen small countries. After the Revolution, the United States became even more susceptible to foreign invaders and if a minute state militia was responsible for warding off these trespassers, the state would be easily attacked. This is just once consequence that could have occurred, if the Constitution of 1787 wasn’t accepted.
The Colonies were excited about having won their independence in 1783 with the signing of the Treaty of Paris, but they still had to be able to create their own system of government which they thought would create a strong government which would not have an overpowering central government as they thought Great Britain had had. With this was the creation of the Articles of Confederation. These articles were meant to create strong local and state governments while not granting any power to the central government with the idea that it could not have any power over the states. The states were allowed to conduct their own diplomacy, or war, from nation to nation or even from state to state. States were allowed to create their own currency and put heavy import taxes on goods from other states. The federal government had no independent executive, nor could it levy taxes on any part of the states. It could not create or maintain a militia; this duty was left to the states. All decisions had to be ratified by all thirteen colonies. In thought, this was a great idea because only the most popular decisions would be ratified and stronger states could not hurt the smaller states through majority rule. In practice it did not work very well because it could be thwarted by a single stubborn state.
During the construction of the new Constitution, many of the most prominent and experienced political members of America’s society provided a framework on the future of the new country; they had in mind, because of the failures of the Articles of Confederation, a new kind of government where the national or Federal government would be the sovereign power, not the states. Because of the increased power of the national government over the individual states, many Americans feared it would hinder their ability to exercise their individual freedoms. Assuring the people, both Alexander Hamilton and James Madison insisted the new government under the constitution was “an expression of freedom, not its enemy,” declaring “the Constitution made political tyranny almost impossible.” (Foner, pg. 227) The checks and balances introduced under the new and more powerful national government would not allow the tyranny caused by a king under the Parliament system in Britain. They insisted that in order achieve a greater amount of freedom, a national government was needed to avoid the civil unrest during the system under the Articles of Confederation. Claiming that the new national government would be a “perfect balance between liberty and power,” it would avoid the disruption that liberty [civil unrest] and power [king’s abuse of power in England] caused. The “lackluster leadership” of the critics of the new constitution claimed that a large land area such as America could not work for such a diverse nation.
The Articles of Confederation was a weak document that bound 13 states (DE, PA, NH, MA, NY, NJ, GA, SC, NC, RI, CT, VA, MD) with unsatisfying outcomes from 1777 to 1781. Even though the Articles of Confederation was created for such efficient purpose as to increase cooperations among the colonies, it did not show its efficiency due to the absence of a federal body to govern all 13 colonies. Without congressional power, Congress had no power to levy or collect taxes and this resulted to the shortage of government money. Furthermore, the Congress was too weak to enforce its laws that the government had to depend on the colonies for the enforcement of law. These detrimental consequences provoked Shay and triggered Shay’s Rebellion. Ultimately,
The American Revolution stirred political unity and motivated the need for change in the nation. Because many Americans fought for a more balanced government in the Revolutionary War, they initially created a weak national government that hampered the country's growth and expansion. In the Letter from Abigail Adams to Thomas Jefferson, Mrs. Adams complained about the inadequacy of power that the American government had to regulate domestic affairs. The Articles of Confederation was created to be weak because many had feared a similar governing experience that they had just eliminated with Britain. The alliance of states united the 13 local governments but lacked power to deal with important issues or to regulate diplomatic affairs. Congress did not have the power to tax, regulate trade, or draft people for war. This put the American citizens at stake because States had the power to refuse requests for taxes and troops (Document G). The weakened national government could not do anything about uprisings or small-scale protests because it did not have the power to put together an army. The deficiencies of the confederation government inspired the drafting of the American Constitution. The document itself embodied the principle of a national government prepared to deal with the nation's problems. In James Madison's Federalist Paper, he persuades the American public to adopt the Constitution so that the government can protect humans from their nature and keep them out of conflicts.
In difficult political times, there is the inclination to gather a group of the country’s most intellectual men to solve the nation’s vital problems. Throughout the 17th century, America fought and gained its independence from Great Britain, establishing a nation government known as the Articles of Confederation. This loose and weak form of government made the country’s leaders rethink its structure led 55 delegates to gather in Philadelphia and attend a Constitutional Convention. Despite the disagreements that emerged during the convention, the delegates were able to settle the challenges that they faced, which included the issues of political representation.
After the American Revolution, each of the original 13 colonies operated under its own rules of government. Most states were against any form of centralized rule from the government. They feared that what happened in England would happen again. They decided to write the Articles of Confederation, which was ratified in 1781. It was not effective and it led to many problems.
After winning the Revolutionary War and sovereign control of their home country from the British, Americans now had to deal with a new authoritative issue: who was to rule at home? In the wake of this massive authoritative usurpation, there were two primary views of how the new American government should function. Whereas part of the nation believed that a strong, central government would be the most beneficial for the preservation of the Union, others saw a Confederation of sovereign state governments as an option more supportive of the liberties American’s fought so hard for in the Revolution. Those in favor of a central government, the Federalists, thought this form of government was necessary to ensure national stability, unity and influence concerning foreign perception. Contrastingly, Anti-Federalists saw this stronger form of government as potentially oppressive and eerily similar to the authority’s tendencies of the British government they had just fought to remove. However, through the final ratification of the Constitution, new laws favoring state’s rights and the election at the turn of the century, one can say that the Anti-Federalist view of America prevails despite making some concessions in an effort to preserve the Union.
The Articles of Confederation was the first government of the United States. The Articles had created a very weak national government. At the time the Articles were approved, they had served the will of the people. Americans had just fought a war to get freedom from a great national authority--King George III (Patterson 34). But after this government was put to use, it was evident that it was not going to keep peace between the states. The conflicts got so frequent and malicious that George Washington wondered if the “United” States should be called a Union (Patterson 35). Shays’ Rebellion finally made it evident to the public that the government needed a change.