Articles Of Confederation Analysis

The American Revolution and the fight for independence against the British sparked a growing need for a stronger government. Therefore the Continental Congress drafted the Articles of Confederation in 1777. “The Articles of Confederation was the first written constitution of the United States” (Give Me Liberty 249). Before the articles there had been no republican government of any kind. “The local loyalties outweighed national patriotism, and John Adams was quoted saying, we have no Americans in America” (Give Me Liberty 248). This sparked a change in American government that paved the way for many new opportunities for our growing nation. This came with many challenges of course, but the Articles of Confederation served as the first framework …show more content…
One of the weaknesses of the articles was the distribution of power. The Articles left too much power to the states and not enough power to the national/central government (Give Me Liberty 250). The majority of the power was held by the states, which left little judiciary power and with no judicial power there was no one to interpret the laws. As well as no judicial power there was no president and with no president there was no one to enforce the laws (Give Me Liberty 249).Since the state government held so much power, the national government didn’t have enough power to force states to obey its laws (Lecture 7). Another huge weakness of the Articles of Confederation was the lack of money. During the Revolution, America racked up huge amounts of debt due to the war against Britain and with no constitutional revenue there was no way to pay off the debts and therefore America was broke. Under the Articles of Confederation, “congress had no real financial resources, it could coin money but lacked the power to levy taxes or regulate commerce” (Give Me Liberty 249).However, each state could print its own paper money which led to big problems. The colonies started to put taxes on trade between states (lecture 7). Another weakness was the requirement of a three- fourths majority to pass any new laws. That meant that nine of the thirteen colonies had to agree for anything to …show more content…
This document played a huge part in the strengthening of our nation. The constitution was created with hopes of fixing the problems the Articles created. The constitution was drafted by many of our founding fathers. “It quickly became apparent that the delegates agreed on many points. The new constitution would create a legislature, an executive, and a national judiciary” (Give Me Liberty 258). That was one of the biggest things the constitution fixed was the separation of powers. However, it didn’t come easy the topic of how much power the states should get versus the amount of power the national government should hold was the most divided topic. A compromise was reached, “a two-house congress consisting of a senate in which each state had two members, and a house of representatives apportioned according to population” (Give Me Liberty 258). The creation of branches of government was one of the biggest success of the constitution. Along with the separation of powers the new government was becoming stronger. The constitution created the branches as well as the separation of powers to ensure that no one party could dominate another (Give Me Liberty 260).
The creation of the Constitution cleared up the grey area that the Article of Confederation consisted of. It set standards for the future of American government.