Preview

Arguments Against The Articles Of Confederation

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
261 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Arguments Against The Articles Of Confederation
After a new Constitution, intended to replace the Articles of Confederation, it was agreed that it would go into effect when nine of the thirteen states had approved it in ratifying conventions. There ensued a nationwide debate over constitutional principles, and the press was overwhelmed with letters condemning or praising the documents. The three men chief among them Hamilton, who wrote about two-thirds of the essays addressed the objections of opponents, who feared a lliberal central government that would replace the states rights and on individual liberties. All strong nationalists argued that most important the proposed system would preserve the Union, now in danger of breaking apart, and empower the federal government to act firmly and together in the national interest. …show more content…
The ultimate protection of individual liberties had to wait for later passage of the Bill of Rights, for these men, as their arguments made plain, distrusted what Madison called the superior force of an interested and majority. Many of the constitutional provisions they praised were intended precisely to decrease democratic surplus.. The essays, published in book form as The Federalist in 1788, have through the years been widely read and respected for their masterly analysis and interpretation of the Constitution and the principles upon which the government of the United States was

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    But one thing was certain, something had to be changed. THe Articles of Confederation had a lot of weaknesses that introduced a great deal of interstate conflict, something that delegates, through the drafting of the Constitution, tried their best to solve. However, under the Articles, when the Founding Fathers signed the Constitution in 1787, it needed the ratification from nine states before it could go into effect. This was not easy. And the push for ratification brought on a seemingly endless barrage of documents, articles, and pamphlets both supporting and opposing it. There were two sides to the Great Debate: the Federalists and the Anti Federalists. The Federalists wanted to ratify the Constitution, the Anti-Federalists did not. One of the major issues these two parties debated concerned the inclusion of the Bill of Rights. The Federalists felt that this addition wasn't necessary, because they believed that the Constitution as it stood only limited the government not the people. The Anti- Federalists claimed the Constitution gave the central government too much power, and without a Bill of Rights the people would be at risk of…

    • 794 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A crucial point in American History came when the people of this country demanded change from the failures of the articles of Confederation. In modern times, Americans debate the issues of national or individual rights, and whether the constitution has address our concerns. Currently, I feel the constitution addresses national rights but not individual rights. One failure of the Articles of Confederation was that power was only given to central government. The money that produced within the articles didn’t hold the value and brought the economy down then it came apart. The second failure was that there was no proper taxation which means things were more difficult to maintain such as any form of central government. It also failed because they were too weak to form an effective central government.…

    • 657 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The American system of government following the end of the American Revolution was a disaster as far as the nation’s status as a union. Under the Articles of Confederation, there was nothing “unified” about the United States. The states stood in the union as individual bodies, with little to no ties to a seemingly non-existent central governing body or to the other states. This allowed the states to disregard other states’ laws and ultimately created disunion within the states. Because it has been proven that the states cannot stand alone and sufficiently govern themselves without a strong central government, the national government should be the supreme law of the land.…

    • 871 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The three most significant challenges that the United States had to face under the Articles of Confederation were: 1) managing the western expansion, 2) foreign relations, and 3) the rising debt, (Shultz,n.d.).…

    • 574 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The people who supported the new Constitution, the Federalists, began to publish articles supporting ratification. Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay eventually compiled 85 essays as The Federalist Papers. These supporters of the Constitution believed that the checks and balances system would allow a strong central government to preserve states' rights. They felt that the Articles of Confederation was too weak and that they were in need for a change (http://www.congressforkids.net/Constitution_ratifyingconstitution.htm). President George Washington wrote a letter to John Jay on August 1, 1786. In this letter Washington agrees with Jay’s criticism of the Articles of Confederation and says “we have errors to correct. We have probably had to good an opinion of human nature in forming our confederation…” The Articles of Confederation had “errors” that needed to be corrected. He complained that the thirteen “disunited states” could never agree. He also suggest that human nature being what it was, America needed a stronger, less democratic national government (doc.3).…

    • 1033 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    During the period between its proposal in September 1787 and ratification in 1789, the United States Constitution was the subject of numerous debates. The contending groups consisted of Federalists, those who supported ratification, and Anti-Federalists, those opposed to the constitution. Each group published a series of letters known as the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers. The Anti-Federalist papers objected to provisions of the proposed constitution while the Federalist Papers defended the rationale behind the document. Anti-Federalist objections included that; the United States was too extensive to be governed by a republic, the constitution included no bill of rights, and the federal judiciary was vaguely defined and could become too powerful. Each of these arguments is worthy of attention as an examination of the debate between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists over the proposed Constitution.…

    • 1711 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Federalist Papers 51

    • 695 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Federalist Papers are a collection of 85 essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay advocating the validation of the United States constitution. The series of articles were first published in 1787 - 1788 in the Independent Journal, the New-York Packet and the Daily Advertiser. At the time of publication, it was unclear who the author’s were, since Hamilton, Madison and Jay used the pseudonym “Publius”, in respect to Roman diplomat Publius Valeria Publicola. It wasn’t until Hamilton’s death in 1804 that it was clear as to who were the creator’s of the “incomparable exposition of the Constitution, a classic in political science unsurpassed in both breadth and depth by the product of any later American writer” (Federalist Papers). The Federalist Papers drafted a basic form of American federalism, meaning the papers served as a justification of the document that would soon become the constitution. The federalist’s promoted a divided federal government, a system of checks and balances where there was “division of power across the local, state and national levels of government” and a system for judicial review (William Bianco). At first, the Federalist Papers were received as unfinished and exaggerated, as many Americans were cynical of a contradiction of the bill of rights. Despite first impressions, the Federalist Papers have survived well into the 21st century, and are still used today by lawyers, judges, and jurors as a tool to interpret the Constitutional laws.…

    • 695 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Federalist Papers

    • 897 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Several documents have helped carve the United States government from the beginning into what we know it as today…the Magna Carta, the Mayflower Compact, the Declaration of Independence…to name a few. One of the most important of those documents was The Federalist Papers. It is a series of 85 articles/essays that were written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay, between 1787 and 1788. This paper will focus on the purpose of the Federalist Papers, who the intended audience was, and why another document – the Articles of Confederation – written after the American Revolution, failed in the wake of the Constitution being drafted and ratified. (Peacock, n.d.)…

    • 897 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Although the Articles of Confederation successfully steered fledgling America through the Revolutionary War, in peacetime society its flaws in unifying the country became increasingly clear. Largely thanks to the insistence of Alexander Hamilton, a delegation came together in May of 1787 to either revise the Articles or create a new government. With George Washington as president of the Constitutional Convention, the delegates drafted the Constitution by September, leaving the states with the responsibility of ratifying. Although Virginia had been heavily influential in the formation of the Constitution, with delegates such as James Madison actually proposing a full plan for the new American government, many of Virginia’s prominent statesmen…

    • 2269 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The two major factions that almost disrupted the developing nation were formulated at the Constitutional Convention of 1787. At this convention, delegates representing all states expect Rhode Island formed a new type of government with the creation of the Constitution. In the ratification process America was divided in two, the federalists and anti-federalists. Federalists were in favor of a strong central government and hence supporting the new Constitution, while anti-federalists were in favor of giving the states a greater amount of power, thus opposing it. The opposition to the Constitution spreads from a mistrust of central government due to the grievances of English monarchy. The rights obtained by the central government took away states’ rights as seen in Sections VIII and X of the Constitution of the United States of American (Document 5). Most people who lived in cities, manufacturers, and northern merchants supported federalist views and most small farmers, southerners and frontiersmen sided with the anti-federalist views. Key federalists included Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, John Marshall, John Jay, and James Madison. In order to promote ratification Hamilton, Jay, and Madison published a series of Federalist Papers, (Document 8). On the anti-federalist…

    • 1046 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    After the United States won its independence, it was being governed by the Articles of Confederation( Schultz, 2010). It did not take long before they realized that they did not have the authority to levy taxes in order to repay debts incurred during the war. A delegate was sent from all thirteen colonies to Philadelphia in 1787 and the Constitutional Convention was established for the purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation. There were so many issues with the articles that the delegates decide to disregard them and draw up a new document. A solution would be found for all three of the main division at the convention; large states vs small states, slave states vs free states, and eastern states vs western states.…

    • 313 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The United States of America was going through a time of great debates and dilemma’s. It became obvious that a better more powerful national government was necessary. The Articles of Confederation was weak and needed to be replaced. While this was occurring a major problem developed. This was between large states, which vied for legislature segmented by population, and smaller states which wanted the system to have equal portioned votes everywhere. The larger states suggested the Virginia Plan, and the small states proposed the New Jersey Plan. At first, this issue was at a stalemate and both sides refused to give up ground. Eventually, Oliver Ellsworth offered The Great Compromise. This called for a bicameral Legislature with proportional…

    • 556 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In November 1777, the Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union—the United States’ first written constitution. The Articles of Confederation formed a constitution concerned primarily with limiting the powers of the central government; however, the central government was based entirely on Congress. At the time, there was no executive branch because they wanted to limit the government and not have it too powerful. This meant that the execution of its laws would be left to the states. Despite the fact that the central government was based entirely in Congress, Congress had little power. The members of Congress were delegates chosen by the legislature, who were paid by the state treasuries. In addition to all…

    • 670 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    From their landing in the New World in the early 1600s, the British subjects, or colonists, were under the rule of the British King. Some colonies had more power with their own legislatures, but the British King and/or Parliament always had the final rule. Some of the British Kings tended to be more lenient than others, but when the Restoration occurred in 1660, Charles II was restored to power in England and he planned on ruling with a complete monarchy. This would cause further conflict between the colonies and England and eventually in the 1700s, a Revolution. Through this revolution, since the colonies weren't going to be ruled by England, a new, central government had to be drawn up. This new government, however, couldn't be too powerful due to the Americans' fear of tyranny. The Articles of Confederation was the perfect government system for the 11 years that it held America together for. It was too weak, however, to last any longer than that. During the time of Revolution, the Articles of Confederation was the right form of central government for America, but its weaknesses in state control led to its rejection and the creation of the U.S. Constitution because they didn't allow the federal government to control taxation and they were too weak. The Articles of Confederation was satisfying in its' role as the central government in America during the Revolution because it held the states together and it signed the Peace Treaty of Paris, which ended the Revolutionary War. The Articles of Confederation was too weak, however, due to the fact that there was no hard currency and unruly state taxation which caused a group of farmers led by Daniel Shay to rebel against it. This rebellion, deemed Shay's Rebellion, led to the passage of the U.S. Constitution.…

    • 1149 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    What is your idea of our nation’s first government? Because if it’s even close to successful, it’s wrong. The government under the Articles of Confederation is evidence of this. Saying it was the opposite of successful would be an understatement; something like “complete failures” would be much more accurate. The government under the Articles of Confederation failed due to its inability to get money from the 13 states, its trouble handling foreign affairs, and its lack of protection of the colonists’ rights.…

    • 568 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays