The Articles Of Confederation During The American Revolution

Last year, our new government was formed. We agreed to what the Articles had said. It seems that now we are having issues with what we had once agreed with. In this newsletter, I will only address four of the most problematic things in the Articles of Confederation. However there are many more that will not be brought to light today.

With the United States new found independence from Great Britain, its founding fathers realize from their historical experiences that a document of law needed to be crafted and established to preserve its new found independence, while maintaining order. However, the first document crafted by the founding fathers, the Articles of Confederation, did preserve the country new found independence but it did not maintain order. The Articles of Confederation described by many founding fathers to be a document that was crafted to satisfy needs of every state for its ratification, even when the document did not present a responsible democracy. The Articles of Confederation granted all national powers to the congress; however, it allowed each state

The Articles of Confederation developed dominance in separate states. Every state was evenly represented, and was granted one vote. Out of those 13 states only 9 states had to come to a “unanimous agreement,” in order for new amendments to be imposed. Some of the strengths were, “the power to make war & peace, handle foreign relations, Indian affairs, and adjudicate disputes between the states” (Creating the U.S. ppt I). An additional strength was The Articles had the control to print and mint money. However, I do not believe this was for their best interest. “Continental Paper Currency,” was valueless in other states; therefore, each state had to use their own money.

The Founding fathers did not want to create a government with too much power so they created the Articles of Confederation. This government turned out to be a failure. In 1787, the founding fathers met again to create a new framework of government. Most people feared creating a government that was too strong. To create a new government there had to be many compromises, the U.S. Constitution is the result of these compromises reached in Philadelphia in 1787. The Articles of Confederation were too weak and created many problems which led to a stronger National government. Two weaknesses of the Articles of confederation were that Congress did not have the power to tax. Another problem was that the states had most of the power and the National Government had little power. Two decisions made by the

The Article of Confederation was a written document that was put in place in 1777 after the 13 colonies had gained independence from the British. During the time in which the Articles of Confederation were still in place; there were problems arising like: the Continental Army not being paid for their services, the struggling economy, and the people wanting to overthrow the government. But events that had taken place had brought the elite for a Constitutional Convention. In the Convention; the elite had discussed the problem that the Articles had caused for them and for the people. The elites during the convention had scrapped the Articles and wrote a new document; which was the Constitution. The Articles of Confederation had a lot of weakness, and this pushed the leaders to hold the Constitutional Convention, also the leaders had to make sure that the people didn't as much power over the government as they did.

“In November 1777 the Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation, the United States first written constitution.”(Ginsberg, et. al. 2014: 35). The Articles of Confederation played a big role in the drafting of the United States’ new constitution. The articles were our United States’ first written governing document. The Articles of Confederation solved some problems by creating at least a minimal amount of government at the time, but it also created some problem for our country because we did not have enough government. As time went on, the Founding Fathers found the issues with the Articles of Confederation, sought ways to solve those issues, and created the Constitution as a lasting governing document.

It was all because the national government couldn’t enforce anything and just had to do what was requested of them with the little material they were given. To see the mess that the Articles of Confederation brought to the country, I 'll give an example. The state government would enforce the national government to print money during the revolutionary war to meet the demands of the war. But due to the debt that the United States were in during the Revolutionary War, the overprinting of money had no money value to back it up, which therefore made it worthless by the time the end of the war rolled around. While the national government asked for the state governments to raise their taxes to recover from the war and bring the currency up to be worth something, the national government wasn 't allowed to tax the states and were only able to request that each state pays their fair share. But by the national government not being able to enforce the taxes to be paid by the states is what led to horrible inflation. Because the states didn 't want to pay taxes and thought that they could do without a national currency, they each created their own currency which too added to the inflation. Inflation was something that occurred with the currency when the value of the money was decreased, which later on led to the increase of prices, which meant that you needed more money to be able to buy something. When each state started printing their own money they ran into issues and

The topic of this paper is the Constitution. The paper will cover the weaknesses in the Articles of Confederation, which was addressed in the Constitution. The paper will cover the how the Constitution addressed the complaints in the Declaration of Independence. Another topic of the paper will be the Great Compromise and how the representation of states in Congress was determined. Finally, the paper will view the treatment of slaves for the purpose of representation and the effects thereof.

The most significant issues that the United States had under the Articles of Confederation were: “managing the western expansion, foreign relations, and debt.” The first significant issue was with the western expansion as Americans relocated to the Nashville, western Pennsylvania, and Kentucky areas in mass numbers in the 1780s. The result of this meant that the areas were enhanced greatly that had western charters. At the time, the northern and southern areas (in the Appalachian Mountains and Mississippi River) had specific boundaries based on the original colonized charters which meant that the western area was the Pacific Ocean. The states that did not have part of the western area resented the condition and as a result, Maryland protested by not approving the Articles of Confederation unless the state of Virginia yielded its western land to the federal government which they did in 1784. However, their yielding was not without strings attached as they demanded that they be allowed to keep a small portion of the land reserve for their own use as a part of the deal which Congress had no choice but to accept. Eighteen years later in 1802, every state had yielded their western land to the federal government.

The Articles of Confederation failed, because they did not give Congress and the national government enough power. The Articles of Confederation formed a war-time confederation of states, with an extremely limited central government. The U.S. had just recently fought a war to stop such an oppressive rule of a strongly based government that overpowered the local government. One of the biggest breaking points for the Articles of Confederation was when Daniel Shays and 1,000 angry farmers broke into the courthouse because the farmers couldn’t pay the loans and were threatened to take loans away from them. Some of the other problems that led the Articles of Confederation to fail was; the states didn’t act immediately, the central government was designed very weak, each state had 1 vote, the document was nearly impossible to amend, the government couldn’t collect enough taxes to fund operations, states had their own currency, and the Confederation government couldn’t help settle the Revolutionary War debts.

The Articles of Confederation was the United State’s first constitution, it was written in an effort to unite the states after the American Revolution and served as a blueprint for the modern constitution. In order for the Articles to become official, they had to be approved by all thirteen colonies. Although Congress sent the Articles of Confederation to the states around the end of 1777 to become ratified, they were not officially adopted until March 1, 1781. Under these Articles, the states remained sovereign and independent, with Congress serving as the last resort on appeal of disputes. The American people feared a strong national government and as a result of this, the Articles of Confederation were specifically designed to be weak in the sense that each state maintains its own sovereignty and all rights to govern themselves, with the except of the rights exclusively granted to Congress. Since the Articles lacked many necessary components to keep a nation properly structured, they were eventually revised into the constitution we recognize today. Although, the Articles of Confederation seemed as though it only contained weaknesses, within the document, many strengths and accomplishments were made. Overall, the Articles of Confederation were proven to be both efficient and non-efficient during the time period they were in effect.

Why did the Framers of the United States Constitution ultimately decided to give more power to the Federal government rather than the state governments? One topic that will be presented in this essay is the problems with the Articles of Confederation. Another topic that will be discussed is what a Federal government is, and why the Framers chose it. Also it will talk about what a State government is, and why the Framers didn’t choose it. Did the Framers do the right thing by handing over their power to the Federal government or should they have chosen the State government?

The first problem is that under the Articles of Confederation Congress did not have enough power. Congress could not raise an army to defend the country, collect taxes from the people, regulate trade between states, or force states to follow laws. Under the Constitution Congress was given more power which included the power levy taxes in Article 1 Section 8.1. The General Welfare Clause granted Congress the power create laws as long as they were for best of the people.

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

The national government of the United States had many challenges under the Articles of Confederation. The Articles caused money problems and the most essential detail, a weak government. This also caused America conflicts among each of the 13 states. These problems greatly impacted the United States and it’s government as well.