It established a weak central government with strong individual state governments. Because of this the federal government was too weak to maintain control over all the colonies, which led to many problems amongst the states. It left the country without a political leader such as a president. It also left the country no way to pay off the war debts from the previous years and it was lacking a tax
This aided in causing the failure of the Parliament because with no real leader, no one could influence the masses or help to make decisions. Therefore, the Frankfurt Parliament became
I believe the Constitution did a better job of protecting liberties, specifically in the areas of the federal court system, representation of the people, and the levy of taxes. Alexander Hamilton, statesman and economist, proclaimed "Laws are a dead letter without courts to expound and define their true meaning and operation”. The Articles of Confederation which gave rise to the Confederation government that took effect in March 1781, did not give the national government any means to enforce the federal laws. The states could, and often did, choose to interpret or enforce federal laws in any manner they saw fit. This led to disputes amongst the states that could not be readily settled, as it relied on each state’s court system which invariably chose to discount the ruling of the other states.
Since the government could not set up a national currency, and states were allowed to make their own, this caused trade between states to be very difficult. In Joseph Jones letter to George Washington (DOC C), he wrote how war veterans felt mistreated when they were not paid and the pay that was earned did not have much value. Jones wrote “One ground of discontent in the army is the delay in complying with their requests.” By never giving congress the power to establish a set currency for the nation, money traded between each state had
The Articles of Confederation wasn’t working for the fifty-five individuals at the Constitutional Convention on May of 1787 in Philadelphia. Under the articles, there was no chief executive, court system, or a way to force the states to pay taxes. For Madison and his delegates, they were challenged by having to write a Constitution that was strong enough to hold the people and states together without letting one person or group, branch, or level of government gain to much control. How did the constitution guard against tyranny? The constitution guarded against tyranny by providing federalism, separation of powers, checks and balances, and big states vs. small states.
They knew the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation; as a governing body, it lacked legislative power that was necessary to support a functional democracy. The important factor in the Constitutional Convention of the seventeenth century was powerless America. The United States was incapable of competing in the global economic because of lack of power to enforce laws and decrees in the states. They understood that a national government would definitely limit the power of total democracy. Without a strong central government, democracy was impossible thus America was propelling towards the gallows of failure.
The 13 colonies followed the Articles of Confederation, but every state had its laws, so the government had not enough power to solve the problem between each states. The government had no taxation and the judiciary. In order to fix
Unity or independence was very important to the colonists before the Revolutionary War because they didn’t have the rights we do today. Colonists couldn’t trade with the world, weren’t protected of their rights, imposed taxes, and a lot more. The king of the colonies had treated them with a lot of disrespect. He had not given them any freedom whatsoever, and had just made them follow his unjust rules and law. Although they knew the consequences or punishments for doing so, the colonists had found ways to smuggle.
During the time period of the Articles of Confederation , Congress lacked much power and was never capable of contributing the money to get the United States out of their war debt. On Feburary 27 , 1783 , a delagate from Virginia named Jospeh WJones wrote a letter to George Washington explaining that those serving the army were unable to recieve the justice that they deserve , because Congress' inability to meet their request for bonuses and back-pay , which truly reflected the horrible diposition and debt that the United states' economy was in after the war. Tresury Secretary Alexander Hamilton urged Congress to have the federal government pay off its debts at face value. The national debt swelled to $75 million causing him to put forth the economy crippling excise tax. On March 7 1785 , John Jay wrote instructions for the United States Minister and sent them to Great Britain, In the document , he explained to the
The nation was quite poor from the Revolution and had loans from the French that it was unable to pay back. This was because the Confederation did not have the power to tax, the states were supposed to donate money to the government and as a result, when other states realized that some were not donating money, they refused to as well. Despite the lack of taxing for the nation, the states placed taxes on goods being traded in or through their territory from other states. However, trade was complicated by the fact that there was no national currency. A Virginia dollar could be worth more than a South Carolina dollar, or worth less than a New England gold coin.