The Articles of Confederation – DBQ The Articles of Confederation failed to provide proper leadership and government to the United States economically, politically, and socially. The Confederation’s lack of control over their states led to disarray and confusion among trade and taxes. There was also an issue convincing state officials to participate in the government as well as settling disputes between the states and even other countries. The Articles of Confederation had problems getting a hold on their economic situation. The nation was quite poor from the Revolution and had loans from the French that it was unable to pay back.
Frederick William shared this view and was unwilling to potentially cause a war with such a powerful state. This caused the Frankfurt Parliament to fail because Prussia did not grasp the opportunity to unite and neither did the King, therefore Germany remained divided. Although he desired power, William IV was not willing to put himself and Prussia under control of the Frankfurt Parliament as he distrusted ‘the gentlemen of Frankfurt’. This meant that the Parliament had no real leader, and so lost support because people distrusted the parliament as an influential figure stated he would not be associated with them. 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.
From then on party leaders were erratic and kept changing, meaning there was little stability in the Conservative party, which made them vulnerable to attack. After Peel was beaten in the Corn Laws crisis, many strong leader figures left with him such as Gladstone. This meant the party was left with the back bench aristocracy who were not all that interested in the wellbeing of the party and let it deteriorate. This was not at all the only problem that the conservatives faced. The truth was that their policies simply did not appeal to the majority of the voting population any more.
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
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
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
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.
This is demonstrated in documents 4, 5, and 6. Henry Haskell states that “The government undertook such far-reaching responsibility in affairs that the fiber of the citizens weakened” (Document 4) This shows that the decline of the empire was due to heavy taxation that couldn’t support the government. If the taxes couldn’t sustain the government then it wouldn’t be able to control the people. According to Montanelli “The military crisis was the result of… proud old aristocracy’s… shortage of children” (Document 5) This means that many children weren’t old enough to go into the military which caused the decrease of soldiers. With the lack of soldiers, it would be easier to invade Rome, which could’ve led to the decline of the Empire.
Confederation and Constitution period ( 1783-1789) Introduction After American Revolution the states were in the situation where they couldn’t pay off the war debts, or negotiate and regulate commerce with foreign nations. In fact the relationship between the states were shaken as they had to compete for trade opportunities which was taken advantage of by Britain- still the world’s strongest trading nation. State governments tended to be dominated by their legislatures and thus provided little effective check on violent and dominant factions. The need for a strong national government became obvious. Once the British system of government was rejected, the states, operating under the “Articles of Confederation,” saw
As a result, no counterbalance of executive or judicial power existed at the national level, and the Articles of Confederation, drafted with the intent of limiting the power of central government, created one without adequate power to govern effectively. Though the government did have certain powers, such as declaring war, entering into treaties, and obtaining and controlling the development of western territories, its weaknesses outweighed its strengths. The most notable shortcomings of the federal government during this period were its inefficient decision-making process and its inability to regulate trade or levy taxes. The Articles of Confederation began the trend of discordant colonies hampering forward movement in government with the ratification process itself. Requiring unanimous acceptance, ratification could be foiled by one state’s refusal.