During the American Revolution our nation governed itself using the Articles of Confederation. Take a moment to look over our readings and follow these instructions when commenting in the section below:
Identify a specific flaw or shortcoming in the Articles of Confederation that kept the government from being efficient (This will be your opinion). Then offer a guess at why they included that shortcoming in their government. What was their priority?
As is our practice we will reply and give feedback to two other commenters. It is totally expected that we will have similar ideas, don't worry about that at all. Simply we wish to attempt to offer as many unique perspectives on this topic.
While reading the document, I realized that the Articles of Confederation treats States like the European Union treats its members. Under the Articles, the States would have so much more sovereignty than they do now. While it's debatable how good or bad this policy is, a young nation almost always needs a strong central government to help it succeed in its first few years. The Articles of Confederation did the opposite of this. I think that this is why the first American government was so inefficient.
ReplyDeleteI agree. The central government is necessary for a young nation, and will help keep people unified. Otherwise, many problems over divides between people would likely grow.
DeleteEthan Lader
I also agree. Especially for a young nation to be able to survive and continue on, there needs to be uniting governing body.
DeleteSakari
DeleteI agree, the people gave way too much power to the state, where basically they could do whatever the heck they wanted. That's not really what you want for one united country.
I agree giving too much power to the states and not to the central government is not good for a young and still developing government.
DeleteI agree, a young nation must have a strong central government for them to be able to prosper. This can be edited later on once the nation is strong.
DeleteI agree with what you said. A developing country must have a tight and united sovereignty, not one that is divided and chaotic, such as the states.
DeleteI agree, it is extremely important that a new country has as much unified power as it can.
DeleteI also agree, the articles limited the central government too much, it had little power, and so the government was too weak to function successfully and failed.
DeleteI agree with this. It's vital that the country has a strong unifying government, and the articles weakened the power of the central government.
DeleteOne flaw about the Articles of Confederation that could lead to a less effective governing body is a weak central government. Each of the states had more control and power over the centralized government, which was problematic for raising an army as well as levying taxes to pay back debts from the war. This could have been included because the strong centralized British government was a huge cause for the problems that colonists faced. One of their priorities was to ensure that they had nothing that looked like a monarch or a single power, which was what they were trying to avoid by having a weak central government.
ReplyDeleteI agree. Less unified policy could lead to divides that could've been damaging in the long term. Definitely dangerous to the existence and longevity of unity between states.
DeleteEthan Lader
I totally agree. If the United States wanted to actually be unified, they need something to unify them. That would have to be an effective central government. The Articles of Confederation denied them that.
DeleteSakari
Deletei definitely agree. One of the main problems of the AoC was that the centralized government was way too weak, to the point where it had like one thing going for it. Maybe later on it wouldn't have mattered as much, but for an early government what you need is stability and strength.
There efforts to avoid having the kind of executive power that England did ended up failing anyway, because since the states were so divided, they all made different choices regarding executive power, like in Massachusetts, where they strengthened executive power even though they didn't have to.
DeleteA large flaw of the Articles of Confederation is that congress wasn't given any power to enforce laws. As a result, most of congress' power was symbolical, as enforcement for any controversial law is necessary. Since congress had so little power, they weren't able to influence policy anywhere as much as they can today.
ReplyDeleteEthan Lader
I definitely agree. Although the symbolism is important, they need to be able to make real decisions and enforce laws.
DeleteWithout the ability to enforce laws, the government is essentially useless. It's basically like shouting at a wall and hoping something comes out of it.
DeleteOften Congress had to make requests to state legislatures before making decisions. Congress itself wasn't enough to unify the states, it needed the power to do so.
DeleteI agree with what you said. Not being able to enforce laws will just delay the growth of the country.
DeleteYes, congress really lacked the power it needed to do what it wanted. It seems like when writing the articles, the creators were conflicted, assigning all these roles to the central government with no way to fulfill them.
DeleteThis is correct, congress represented what the Colonials were fighting for, democracy and rule over themselves, and what congress symbolized and meant to the people was very important to why it was so weak.
DeleteI think the biggest flaw in the Articles of Confederation was the restrictions placed on Congress. Congress was not allowed to regulate trade, draft troops, or directly levy taxes without making requests to state legislatures. You could argue that it was a good thing that Congress's power was limited so that they couldn't make unfair, oppressive decisions on behalf of the states. Even though that is true, however, the only central institution of authority that the Articles provided was Congress, and since Congress didn't have much power, the states were very divided with no common leadership. Like people have previously said on the blogger, a stronger central government was needed.
ReplyDeleteI agree, having a stronger central government prevents the states from being divided and not having a common leadership.
DeleteAgreed. Stripping so much power from Congress meant that the U.S. was disorganized with no strong guiding force.
DeleteYes, very well said. I understand why they didn't want Congress to have a lot of power (because they didn't want to turn out like the British,) but in the end, Congress needs a bit of power to properly function.
DeleteI agree, a central government helps unite individual states to a country.
DeleteSakari
ReplyDeleteI think most, if not all, of us agree that one of the main problems with the Articles of Confederation (AoC) was that the centralized government was way too weak. Now I'm not one who is gung-ho for everything to be controlled by them, but for a nation that was supposed to be just starting out, and wanting to be unified, the country government was about as strong as a wet spaghetti noodle (and not even the good kind! Like... walmart brand stuff). The states could do whatever they wanted, and the government had to just nod along and beg for money. Which was another problem: nobody wanted to pay for reparations to rebuild their own country! What's that about? Being so greedy you don't even want to repair your own living area...
Like many others have said, The articles of Confederation give a lot of power to each individual state, but not enough to to the central government. Every state should have power, but having a strong central government, especially because America was still developing, binds the states together making it a stronger country al together.
ReplyDeleteI do wonder why a strong central government would be needed for a newly independent nation, as in many other parts of the world, for example South Africa, after gaining independence broke off bits and pieces and remained relatively fine. If one views each state government as a central government in itself, maybe they are strong enough? I'm not sure.
DeleteI believe that one of the biggest flaws of the Articles of Confederation was the power of the central government. It was truly too weak when compared to the power of the individual states. The individual states having power is obviously very important, but not as much as a strong central government of a developing country. If America had kept this dynamic, the country would have ruined itself because there were too many states with too many strong opinions. No problems get solved this way, and there won't be any order within the country. Having a strong centralized government is important because it creates unity and order.
ReplyDeleteYou're right. A powerful central government is needed for the growth of a nation. Otherwise, no overarching decisions can be made.
DeleteI agree, in this sense the new nation was not united at all. The states were extremely independent, and it seemed as if there was 13 nations and not one.
DeleteI agree. It was important not go go to one extreme, but to find a middle ground between State's rights and a central government.
DeleteThe Articles of Confederation did not allow the U.S. Federal Government to have a standing army. Only the individual states had militaries. This existed to stop the central government from oppressing the American population. Additionally, since the states comprised the American military, they could force the central government to adhere to them, rather than the other way around.
ReplyDeleteso you believe not giving the central government an army was a flaw because the states could overthrow them? If that's the case then I defiantly think that's an interesting point that I hadn't thought of before.
DeleteI'm intrigued by your point on military. On one hand I would agree that this limited the central government's authority and prevented them from having what might have been necessary power. On the other hand I feel like it was a good thing that the states had the military power, because that way they were clearly lending their strength to the central government and not the other way around. I suppose this conflict of ideas is what caused them to first write their government this way and then change it later.
DeleteI agree with this. This could easily cause wars between states, and since the federal government couldn't stop it with a bigger army, the war could rip the country apart.
DeleteOne of the biggest flaws of the Articles of Confederation was allowing the states to be so independent. There wasn't one nation, rather 13 nations in a sense. A new government of a new nation needs to be unified and strong. They barely had a central government and each state had too much individual power. As a new nation they should have been more unified, and as time went on and the country as a whole got stronger, then they should have given a bit more independence to the states.
ReplyDeleteI agree, I think it was the lack of unity that really made the AOC so unfunctional.
DeleteI also agree. Another problem with the separated states was that they each had a completely different system and made different authorities had different levels of power.
DeleteI agree, they fought the cause for independence together, but they're not growing together because of the central governments weaknesses.
DeleteOne problem with the Articles of Confederation was that all of the power was condensed on the state level, with a very weak national government. The problem with this is that when states all basically have their own independent and powerful governments, there is very little linking them together and making them a country. This makes it hard for them to work together and function as a whole unit, which then causes a whole host of other problems. I do understand where they were coming from, though, when they made this decision. They were probably trying to avoid turning out like Britain all over again, after they just fought a whole war against Britain's very ideals and government. Britain had a lot of power concentrated in one person (the king) and group (parliament) making it so that the American's got into the position of revolution in the first place. This is why the colonists wanted to specifically avoid coping this when building their own nation, so it was only natural that they spread the power out A LOT (maybe a little too much.) As we know, the Articles of Confederation were replaced with the Constitution because of their lack of function for America, which arguably stemmed from this power imbalance between the states and nation.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree, the whole point of the articles seemed to be to make sure the central government have less power, however by doing so they gave the states a bit too much power and weakened the national government a bit too much.
DeleteI agree. They wanted to fix things by avoiding the British route, but the states were too disconnected for the Articles to work.
DeleteI think the main problem with the articles of confederation was the fact that the states were given more power and independence as they left the central national government very week. The whole point was to distribute power yet the states seem to be all separated from each other, not unified through a national government. All of the states coming together through a strong national government would have made America much more powerful, but instead the articles of confederation left the central government week.
ReplyDeleteI totally agree. They were trying to follow the example of the Iroquois Confederation, but they had different end goals. The states' were not unified enough to be powerful.
DeleteI agree. The states became even more divided and individually powerful, when they should’ve been unified.
DeleteI think one of the main problems with the Articles of Confederation was the lack of power given to the central government. Because of this, they were unable directly levy taxes, which meant even if they were powerful in other ways (which they were not) had no money for them to control (that is kind of similar to the British officials when the colonial assemblies controlled all of the taxes: despite their large amount of power, the officials didn't have the money to do anything). They did not have any power to make decisions, so they were very weak and inefficient.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you! It seemed off to me that instead of the colonies having changes implaced on all of them altogether, they ended up individually going through something different due to the lack of regulations the government gave out.
DeleteI agree! It's definitely very similar to the situation with the British.
DeleteA flaw that I saw in the Articles of Confederation was how each individual state overpowered the amount of regulations and power the central government had. As a country that had recently gotten its independence, the Articles of Confederation wasnt the finest ruling of government to have given to the colonies because instead of being governed together and growing stronger together as a new independent country. They were governing individually by states because of the centralized government lacking of enough power, and each individual part of the government not having a check and balances system.
ReplyDeleteI liked how you compared the overpowering authority of the states compared to the central government. I completely agree that this flaw limited their growth as a new nation and that the scales were completely imbalanced.
DeleteI agree, each individual state having essentially more power than the federal government made the country very weak.
DeleteI'm going to repeat what everyone else has said and say that the biggest flaw in the Articles of Confederation was its lack of central government. Of course it is completely understandable that they fear a repeat of history and want to maintain power as separate states. After all it's already impressive enough that they could overcome their differences to fight a revolution when there were such clear divides between them, you can hardly expect them to unite into one nation and give power to a central government when that is what they worked so hard to defeat. But this prevented them from taking decisive action and doing what needed to be done.
ReplyDeleteThis is a big one, as without a strong and unified central government, everything else falls apart, and nothing can stand. It makes sense that these people are wary about everything however, coming out of a war that they fought for their independence, so of course they would wish to structure their new system to not be what they fought to break free from. Not having a centralized government does greatly weaken them however, and sets them back until the Articles are repealed.
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ReplyDeleteOf course, it was too weak a central government. Tax wise, it relied on the states to hand over money, which for obvious reasons they often wouldn't do. It also didn't have a standing army, again relying on the states. I have to say though, I'm not really sure this is a totally bad thing. I mean, if we are judging it as a unified state it was terrible. But it simply could have just...not been united, and in that case a seemingly terrible and ineffective government seems more like a loose collection of more effective governments. All of this was the central governments effort to essentially have exactly that, a loose, free, collection of smaller governments.
ReplyDeleteThe Articles of Confederation were lacking in that they weren't really a central government and that was a massive disadvantage. They couldn't really levy taxes because each state ran most of economic affairs and quite frankly, all affairs. They also didn't have a strong leveled army. They were weak all around and any obstacle could've caused them to crumble.
ReplyDeleteAgreed, since there were none of these aspects of a strong government due to the Articles of Confederation, and the hesitation that many feared when creating these caused the government to be "too weak," because they were not very unified and were incredibly poor, which were two major things that caused them to be disadvantaged in general.
DeleteOne significant way that the Articles of Constitution were flawed is that they specifically did NOT allow for Congress/the national government to levy the taxes directly against the citizens, so they were stuck with simply trying to request money from the states, which many did not contribute to. This meant that the government was poor, and could not pay off the national debt or fund anything at all, because taxes were not collected by them to distribute out. This shortcoming was placed there, however, since the Americans were still wary of all the high taxation without representation that England had placed on them, so they did not want a repeat of that, and instead focused on freedom of the people, having the government not be able to directly enforce taxes on the citizens.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Congress should have been able to impose taxes so that people would actually contribute money to the government
DeleteA flaw of the Articles of Confederation is that congress wasn't given any power to enforce laws. Instead, each individual state overpowered the amount of regulations and power the central government had. Since congress had so little power, they weren't able to influence policy. People didn't want America to have an oppressive government, but I think at first America went to the other side of the extreme. A government can't have too much power, but it needs some in order to keep the country on track.
ReplyDeleteA major flaw of the Articles of Confederation is that it treated the states as separate countries rather than actual states. Legislative power was in the hands of the states themselves rather than a centralized government, which meant that while Congress was supposedly in charge, it didn't have much power. It couldn't levy taxes on states and it didn't have a united army. Under the Articles, each state had their own government and laws, and the only thing that united them was name.
ReplyDeleteA flaw with the Articles of Confederation was that the government did not have enough power. The individual states had a lot of power which would make them even more divided, instead of creating a unified nation. I think Congress should have been able to text so that the government would not become so poor.
ReplyDelete**impose taxes
DeleteThe Articles of Confederation's biggest flaw was in the lack of a strong central government. With a weak government they were less of a unified state and the individual states had more power than the central government.
ReplyDeleteI think that the articles divided the power amongst the states too much, leaving a central government behind. One example of this was when Adams was sent to Britain after the war to try to get Britain to pay for freeing the slaves, parliament wondered whether he represented a single power, or 13 of them. Also, the articles gave the government weakened powers, it could not even levy taxes on the people without the people agreeing to it, and who would want to pay taxes? Essentially, there was no path forward for the government if they kept the articles, which gladly, they did not.
ReplyDeleteThe Articles of the Confederation's biggest weakness was the fact that it lacked power and wasn't able to levy taxes directly on the people. Because of this, it lacked the funds to make a proper infrastructure and support the people.
ReplyDelete