Weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation
Weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation In 1777 while the Revolutionary War was still going on the Continental Congress drew up a plan for our first official government. This plan was called the Articles of Confederation and was accepted by the 13 states and began operation on 1781. Though the Continental Congress was hopeful that the new nation would function well, there were many weaknesses in the Articles of Confederation that prohibited the nation from being proficient. One problem with Articles was that Congress had trouble passing laws due to the fact that nine of the thirteen states had to agree before any laws could be passed. Every state was very different and getting that many states to agree on something was almost impossible. What added to this problem was that Congress had no specific power to tax. The nation needed to raise revenue to pay for war debts and to run the government. In order to do this many different taxes were proposed, but none of them could be agreed upon by the states so none were passed. In other words, Congress could ask for money but they had no power to force the states to pay.
Continental money wasn't worth much, and to make matters worse some states began to coin their own money, making trade among the states almost impossible. What all of this amounts to is the Articles greatest weakness: the lack of a strong central government. This caused many disagreements because everyone wanted to bend the laws as they saw fit. In order for the country to function as a whole, each state had to have some things in common, and under the Articles of Confederation the states were given to too much freedom and refused to cooperate with one another. The writers of the Articles of Confederation were very afraid of a tyrannical ruler, so they made no provision for an executive branch. Without this money the government could not sufficiently run the nation, but without the power to tax there was no way to raise the money. Unfortunately, the Articles of Confederation were nearly impossible to amend. It was hard enough to get nine of the thirteen states to agree on anything, so getting all of them to agree was hopeless. With the Articles failure to mention currency and trade, each state was acting as its own country and there was no way to unify the nation. The executive branch in the branch of government that executes the laws, and without this branch there was no way to make sure that the states followed the laws of the nation. With no central government to regulate what each state was doing, every state was different. With the large number of economic conflicts, boundary disputes and many other things that were happening among the states the nation was in desperate need of a judicial system. Since there was no stipulation as to what they could and could not do when it came to trade, many of the states entered into agreements with other countries, and many of these agreements did not turn out well.
Common topics in this essay:
Articles Confederation,
Articles Congress,
American Revolution,
Continental Congress,
articles confederation,
executive branch,
weaknesses articles confederation,
Article Confederation,
branch government,
nine thirteen agree,
central government,
power tax,
country function,
continental congress,
getting agree,
thirteen agree,
nine thirteen,
|
Acceptance Essays
