Articles Of Confederation Dbq Analysis

The period surrounding the Revolutionary War philosophically drew from the philosophies of J. Locke and C. Montesquieu. Both men wrote on the origin, need and extent of governments in their time, and created the basis for the liberal form of government. When the Articles of Confederation are compared to the individual philosophies of these two men, the Articles of Confederation proved an ineffective government economically speaking. It has been speculated upon that the most serious flaw in the Articles of Confederation is its inability to allow the federal form of government the power to tax. Taxes are the governments’ income, without them the government cannot provide the services vital to the stability of the country. John Locke theorized
Reasons for Congresses inability to levy taxes are obvious when comparing the tax it wished to levy and Adam Smith’s 4 principles of sound tax policy. Smith, the father of modern economics, stated that one policy of a tax policy is that the tax must be levied at regular intervals and of constant quantities. Document H states that this proposed tax went against this principle also “bearing a burden on commercial states.” Even if the Congress under the Articles could tax, their tax will have been a bad one and it is a fact that the people of a country basically judge the government by its taxing
failure under the Articles to get favorable trade agreements with foreign nations. Because the credibility of the Federal government was weak, meaning it was not sovereign in the Confederation and it did not represent the people as a whole.
The bargaining position of America was weak. According to Document D, all the U.S. could do was to “respectfully” ask Great Britain to lower its trade restrictions with the U.S. Because the U.S. Was expanding westward, navigations along the Mississippi became increasingly important to the economic well being of the U.S. Again the U.S. bargaining position, this time with Spain, was weak because the U.S. could not secure a treaty in total accordance with its economic stance and this treaty “would be limited” to a certain length of time. The failure of any government economically means that the government in question is a failure for a government is economic in nature. A government must have the power to tax so that it may provide vital services to its people. A government must provide a favorable balance of trade and government economic policies must be positive. The Articles of Confederation failed in all of these aspects and because of that proved to be