The Articles of Confederation verses the Constitution

The article was written in the early part of the American Revolution by the committee of the second continental congress, because of the wars with Great Britain and the experience they have had with them. They wanted to give the states as much independence as possible, and this independence greatly limited the power of the federal government. The articles helped the struggling states in the process and exercise of self-government. During the articles, the national government consisted of a single house of congress. There was no judicial branch of government, only authority to mediate.

Why did the Americans select the constitutional order they did in 1787-1789, and why did they reject a more democratic and confederal form not more than a decade old? In 1787, twenty-nine delegates convened in Philadelphia to tweak the Articles of Confederation. Some delegates, however, arrived with the intention of creating a completely new constitution. James Madison proposed the Virginia Plan, a plan which advocated a balanced, three-branch method of government with a bicameral, or two-house, Congress. In contrast, William Paterson submitted the New Jersey Plan which merely amended the Articles by giving the federal government more power.

They felt that the government was too weak to effectively deal with the upcoming challenges. In 1787, an agreement was made by delegates at the Constitutional Convention that a national judiciary needed to be established. This agreement became known as The Constitution of the United States, which explicitly granted certain powers to each of the three branches of the federal government, while reserving other powers exclusively to the states or to the people as individuals. It is, in its own words, “the supreme Law of the Land” (Shmoop Editorial Team). The first proposals to this new plan were the Virginia Plan and the New Jersey Plan.

Ravi Purohit-PUB 1250                                    2/16/05 The paper in which I chose to write about is American Democracy. When the thirteen British colonies in North America declared their independence in 1776, they laid down that “governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” This meant that they wanted a government for the people, run by the people. This is one of the basic ideals upon which our nation was founded. The “colonies” needed to have a written constitution to define and therefore more specifically limit government powers. After the Articles of Confederation failed to work in the 13 colonies, the U.S. Constitution was created in 1787.

Before the Constitution was framed, a weak central government had been established under the Articles of confederation. The Articles of Confederation were created when Richard Lee offered his resolution for independence in June 1776. He proposed that “ a plan of Confederation” he prepared for the colonists a confederation is defined as a group of independent states or ... ... middle of paper ... ... they were going off of different ideas but, they say by evaluating the Articles they came up with something better what they called that Constitution. I just explained to you the differences and the similarity between both the Articles and the Constitution. One of the greatest things that the Constitution had was, “The Constitution created a more cohesive federal government, allowing for more centralized control of things such as coining money, enforcing laws, collecting taxes, and passing laws.

These powers were suddenly limited because Congress was given no authority to enforce its requests to the states for money or troops. By 1786, it was specious that the Union would soon break up if the Articles of Confederation were not corrected or replaced. There were five states that met in Annapolis, Maryland, to discuss the concern, and all the states were invited to send delegates to a new constitutional convention to be held in Philadelphia. On May 25, 1787, delegates representing every state except Rhode Island assembled at Philadelphia's Pennsylvania State House for the Constitutional Convention. The Independence Hall had earlier seen the recruiting of the Declaration of Independence and the signing of the Articles of Confederation.

The Articles set up the first legislative system that unified the thirteen states that battled in the American Revolution. A major theme that was discussed in the essays centers around the idea that the United States could not continue to endure under the Articles of Confederation and the weaknesses that accompany it. The Articles gave states the authority to create their own laws, however they were unsuccessful in creating a strong government. The essay suggested that immediate action be taken to prevent the impending anarchy that would ensue under these Articles. Philosophers that shaped and influenced the Federalist include Thomas Hobbes, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Montesquieu and John Locke.

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. So in the summer of 1787 delegates from the twelve states convened in Philadelphia to draft a new Constitution. They proposed a strong national government that would assume many of the powers previously imposed upon the states. (1) “No sooner than had the Continental Congress laid the proposed Constitution before the people for ratification, ” Irving Brant writes, “than a cry went up: it contained no Bill of Rights.”(2) People objected because the liberties they had fought for in the Revolution were not being protected by the Constitution, and then could be ignored by the federal government. The Anti-Federalist called for another convention to outline a Bill of Rights before the Constitution was approved.

In this report, I will compare and contrast the Articles of Confederation with the new Constitution of 1787, analyze the drafting of the Constitution and how the states compromised to draft it effectively, compare and contrast the debate over the ratification between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists, and evaluate the success of the Bill of Rights in achieving balance between national and states’ interests. The Articles of Confederation were drafted between 1776 and 1777 and they were to define the collective sovereignty of the states. The following year, The Articles of Confederation were presented to the states for ratification, but only eight states had ratified the document by July 1778. This created a problem because all thirteen states needed to ratify the Articles before they were put into action. This didn’t happen until 1781.

The Articles of Confederation had been proven weak, illustrating the need for a stronger government. Consequently, 55 delegates from various states met at the Philadelphia Convention in 1787 to draft a Constitution. The Constitution created a whole new structure of government. The American Revolution made Americans realize that they did not want to another monarchy to take place so they created checks and balances with three branches of government. Decided in the Great Compromise, the representation in Congress was made more equal.