(Doc. 6) They wanted to fix the constitution, because there were many things that needed to be fixed, so we could have a stronger government. The Federalist were afraid that the United States would have bad things happen and they were trying to prevent it from happening. (Doc. 4) Although the Anti-Federalist had their own beliefs about the constitution.…
Regarding structure, the Articles of Confederation, or simply Articles, were relatively ‘bare-bones’ when compared to the complex constitutions and declarations of government other countries had. It laid out a simple and ultimately primitive government: the power of the government was to lie solely in Congress, a group of delegates from all states. It was to be Congress and only Congress to create laws and run most of the government. This concept did not work well in practice: Congress, the only branch of the government, was weak and unable to bring about policy change for the country. First, all amendments to the Articles required a unanimous vote of all thirteen states - something that was quite rare - and even the simplest of national laws required a two-thirds majority to be established. This became a major issue. As a new country, a lot of issues were going to come forth to Congress, and due to the bureaucratic rules that were in place, it was difficult for a treaty or policy to be approved. Furthermore, the Articles did…
There were also many international and domestic problems involved with the Articles of Confederation. The United States lacked the military power to be able to defend itself against Britain and Spain. The British still occupied their forts near the Great Lakes area, and congress found it very difficult to negotiate territory with Spain. Under the new form of government, we had no judicial system or executive branch, but we did have a legislative branch. Our congress was unicameral, meaning it had one house, which was the senate. Because the states were acting as individual countries, they seldom agreed with…
The Articles of Confederation was the first American constitution completed by the Continental Congress in 1777. The Articles of Confederation created a “firm league of friendship” between all 13 states. Each state agreed to send delegates to the Confederation Congress where each state will cast one vote in Congress. Under the Articles Congress had no possession over trade or passing laws regarding taxes. However, Congress can declare war, appoint military officers, coin money, and foreign affairs. Unfortunately, there were some downsides to the Articles of Confederation that people from all 13 states did not agree with or argued about it such things as alliance, passing laws, courts, money, and trade. (Davidson, 189)…
The Federalists had opposing view points compared to the Early Jeffersonians. Unlike the Jeffersonians, the Federalists saw that if the "loose laws" aren't enforced enough than there is no reason to keep them if the people…
debates. People that supported the Constitution argued that many state constitutions already did the job of protecting citizens’ rights. Supporters of the Constitution believed that these rights already existed as natural rights, even though they were not listed. The anti-federalists disagreed and believed there should be a list of rights. They feared that the stronger national government would abuse individual rights. The anti-federalists basically wanted a list of individual…
There were numerous of problems under the “Articles of Confederation”. Several of the main problems were its incapacity of increasing funds, the necessity of completing consent to accomplish modifications , the “lack of authority over internal trade , foreign relations, and debt.” The central problem was that the states turned down the idea of giving the national government sufficient power to function properly. The articles gave each single state “independence”, but gave the “federal government” very little power. Congress had a hard time ratifying laws for the reason being that “ 9 out of 13 states” had to concede with passing them before any of them could fully go through .Congress did not have the authority to accumulate taxes required…
The weak central government that existed under the Articles of Confederation were the main problems that led to the Constitutional Convention of 1787. The Articles created a confederation of independent states, not a nation. The Constitution is different, the balance of power fell under the authority the federal…
The Founders’ perceptions were that America was weak and de-centralized. They created a weak, confederal government designed to protect people’s liberties by being to small to be a threat, but it was too small to handle national problems. The differences between the Articles of Confederation and the US Constitution are that one, the US Constitution has a Bill of Rights, the power of the president is addressed and the separation of the branches. This changed occurred to make the government stronger and address the nation’s problems. The Anti-Federalists were a large group who didn’t like the Constitution but didn’t know what they wanted yet and they contributed to the branches. The Federalist were defenders of the constitution and they contributed to the bill of…
In the Articles of Confederation the writers made it to where the state governments had great power and the federal government was weak. After some years people began to see the weaknesses and decided to make a change. One of the weak points in United States' first constitution was commerce regulation. There was no provision to control interstate or foreign trades. Congress could only regulate trade and business with Native Americans, and sometimes they could not even do that.…
After the Revolution of 1776, America had to transition itself from thirteen disjointed colonies to one unified nation. In 1777, the Articles of Confederation was drafted and submitted for the states’ approval. Out of thirteen states, only eight ratified the plan for a national government by 1778, while nearly three more years passed before the last state approved the Articles (Soomo Publications, 2015). Although the Articles of Confederation provided a system for the Continental Congress to direct the Revolutionary War, Congress felt the need for a stronger union with enough power to defeat Great Britain. The belief that a constitutional order must be fitting to its republican character was met with the fear of a central authority (HistoryEd, 2009). Such a fear may have potentially devastated the ability to adequately serve a considerable union like the United States. In response to this fear, Federalists such as Alexander Hamilton published essays in hopes of swaying the public opinion in favor of ratifying the Constitution. The Federalist Papers are a collection of eighty-five articles written by Hamilton, as well as James Madison and John Jay, promoted ratifying the Constitution in hopes of creating a resilient, centralized government (Lutz, 1990). After months of deliberation at the Constitutional Convention in Pennsylvania, a Constitution was ratified and agreed upon by the states.…
A collection of essays called, The Federalist, were published in 1787 and 1788 and basically supported the ratification of the constitution and the idea of a national authority without the fear of tyranny in the new government. The anti-federalists responded to this with what they considered to be the dangers of a more powerful central government.…
On the heels of the revolutionary war and the failed attempt of a national government (The Articles of Confederation), the leaders of the United States set to make a stronger, centralized government, with dual sovereignty between the national government and the states. The rules of this governing body would be laid out in a document called the Constitution. Although most leaders supported the constitution they did not agree on many aspects of it. Out of the disagreement two groups emerged, the Federalist and the Anti-Federalist. The Federalist supported all aspects of the constitution and a larger national government, while the Anti-Federalist opposed ratifying the constitution and supported a smaller national government and more sovereignty to the states. This disagreement led to a fierce debate between the two groups that still resonates today. This essay will examine the primary…
Another reason that motivated the Anti-Federalist to demand the passing of the Bill of Rights was to protect basic humans rights won from the American Revolution so that a strong national government will not be able to take such rights away. So that certain common liberties and rights would be protected no matter what. Most of which was fueled by the fear of a tyrannical government that would be too powerful, and would have unchecked power to do whatever…
The main idea of the Articles of Confederation was to make the states come together. Many people of the nations had agreed, but some people did not understand the complete purpose of this new government. many of the strengths were that the nation was able to make peace/declare war with other nations. It encouraged cooperation with other states. But where there is strengths there are also weaknesses.…