Comparison of the United States Constitution and the Articles of Confederation

Relations between the thirteen British colonies and their mother country became strained after the Seven Years War when colonial America yearned for its own independence from Great Britain. Throughout the war the British government supported the American colonies but suffered serious financial losses. In desperation to seek compensation and retain power of its overseas colonies, the English Parliament began imposing strict laws and taxes on the colonists. In retaliation the furious colonists demanded sovereignty and when Parliament refused to grant it to them, a Revolutionary War erupted in 1775. During the Revolutionary War, on June 12, 1776, the Second Continental Congress representing all of the thirteen colonies under British control assembled a draft of the Articles of Confederation; the first of two doctrines that resulted in the eventual unification of the divided colonies, establishment of a self government, and the ratification of today’s U.S. Constitution.

The first U.S. constitutional doctrine ever written were the Articles of Confederation, composed during a time when the thirteen British colonies were still in a Revolutionary war with Great Britain. On November 15, 1777 after a year of debate, the Second Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation. It didn’t become effective though, until it was ratified by all thirteen states in 1781; a task that proved to be difficult after some states refused to cooperate. Under the Articles of Confederation the British colonies were to unite, become individual self-sovereign states, and distinguish themselves as the United States of America. It would allow them to abandon the statutes of the British monarchy and plan an organized government...

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...overnment was absolutely necessary to regulate national laws and avoid disarray. However, the Anti-Federalists were content with the states possessing more power than the government and worried about the elimination of slavery in the South. Somehow, these two groups had to come to an accord to allow for the passing of the Constitution. On June 21, 1788 the U.S. Constitution became effective after it was ratified by the required nine states. In 1789, George Washington was elected to become the first President of the United States. Next, the Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution in 1791 in order to protect individual rights from the power of the national government. Finally, Americans had a Constitution, a strong national government, and individual rights that till this very day still exist in the United States.

Works Cited

The American Pageant