Articles of Confederation

The Articles of Confederation were a starting point for the United States in self-government from Britain, but they did not effectively govern the people at the time. The Articles of Confederation were written in 1777, and ratified by the last state (Maryland) in 1781. They were a loose model of what a government should be and provided some closure to the American Revolution. On a positive note, The Articles gave the states power and rights to create laws and craft a newly born legislature. The Articles also had flaws that seemed to overpower their strong points. With the Articles of Confederation congress could not levy taxes, regulate foreign or domestic trade or collect debts owed to the central government. The Articles were not sufficient Economically, Militarily and socially and created weaknesses in America. The Articles of Confederation were an O.K., start but what the American citizens needed was a stable, dynamic, devised plan for their country; a Constitution.

From an Economic standpoint the Articles of Confederation were not beneficial to the United States. The problem was the power congress gave to the states. With congress not being able to levy taxes or collect state debts owed to the government, the economy was moving nowhere. The reason behind this is that the Articles gave too much power to the states. So much so that some states told congress they would not be taxed, as strongly stated in Rhode Island’s Assembly letter to congress. Rhode Island was one of many states who felt that Congress should not be able to tax or impose on import regulations as that was a huge part of sea-board economy. Also with the writing of the Articles of Confederation came a decline in export values with Great Britain. As shown in an evaluation of the Market Value of United States Exports to Great Britain, a steady decline resulted from the completion of the Articles of Confederation. With the states being able to regulate their own economies and congress having no say in taxation, nationwide economy remained at a stand still.

Trudging behind economic dismay came security or military problems within the United States, following the Articles of Confederation. The military defense while the Articles of Confederation were in motion was alarming. Congress did have the power to raise an army or a navy but they did not possess the power to pay them, Therefore making every U.S solider at the time a “volunteer”. During a time of economic crisis finding volunteer soldiers was hard, scarce and quickly depleted. As eloquently written in delegate Joseph Jones letter to George Washington: “One ground of discontent in the army, and on which they found the opinion that justice is not intended to be done to them, is the delay in complying with their requests [ for bonus and back pay]. With a weak army of discontent soldiers without pay, the security of the United States was frightening. Unreliable requests and empty promises instituted corruption in the Articles and soon lost popularity. Government weaknesses were beginning to gleam and arousing reform.

American citizens were now starting to realize that they were not as protected as they thought with the Articles of Confederation and saw weakness in our government. Americans were seeing injustices and wrongdoings from an unreliable congress. One may argue