Articles of Confederation
To say that from 1781 to 1789, the Articles of Confederation provided the United States with an effective government would be over-exaggerating quite a bit. To many people in the present day, an effective government is a body that can govern mass numbers of people, and still be just in their overruling decisions on matters and also keeping law and order in mind, always remembering to do things for the benefit of the common good. However, the Articles of Confederation was not written in the present day, so these principles of an effective government are not quite applicable. Instead, many people from the time period of the 1780's believed that an effective government was a body that could govern mass numbers of people, still giving the states and the people many rights, while still being able to keep control. This would eliminate any possibility that a federal government could either become too strong or could resemble a monarchy. The Articles of Confederation did very few of these things, but on the plus side for some, the Articles of Confederation did not create a strong central government. However, this was not always good, for some could be led to believe that the Articles of Confederatio
The Articles of Confederation served as a stepping stone to the United States Constitution, which was later to be written. There were no federal courts, no authority to act directly upon individuals, no power to coerce states, and there had to be unanimous approval of the states for an amendment to be put into action. Unfortunately, the people could not get any help from the government because of the fact that Congress had no power to regulate commerce and that the Articles of Confederation, due to different views, created foreign disputes. was weak, thus they did not fear creating foreign affairs with the U. They wanted "all the posts and territories within their limits" (Document D). Rawlin Lowndes of South Carolina posed the question in a speech to the House of Representatives (Document H) whether they should keep the Articles or should they simply revise them. Because the surrounding states had neither the time, the power, the money, nor the patience to erect an army to fight over rights to trade routes, the Mississippi River, for the time being, simply had to be closed. Later, when these territories have a population of more than sixty thousand, they could be admitted by Congress as states. The only reason that the Articles of Confederation needed to be patched up in the first place was that there were some major components missing from this law-biding document. The Articles of Confederation was not a document that provided an effective government, but more of a document that ensured sovereignty of the states. The Articles of Confederation was simply a loose confederation of the states with no congressional power over commerce and no congressional power to levy taxes. In one certain instance, George Washington had to bring two individuals to his home and sit them down to settle out their dispute over a cup of tea. If there had been an effective government, the said factors and problems would not have been in existence. In fact, statistics (Document B) show that from 1784 to 1789, the estimated market value of United States exports to Great Britain fluctuated from about $4,429,000 in 1784 to about $4,901,000 in 1789. Instead, many wanted a sovereignty of the states, which they received under the Articles of Confederation.
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