The Articles of Confederation were the original American attempts at a constitution. The articles described how the power of state is more important than the power of the congress. Because of this philosophy the Articles of Confederation failed for many different reasons, thus being the reason the Articles do not exist today. Perhaps one of the greatest failures of the Article was the inability to control trade. Trade is a major income and help for the economy as well as a necessity for the common American. Trade brings in products from all over the world that could not be provided nor produced, to the countries that receive the products. According to the Articles, Congress only had the power to control trade with the Native Americans, and even that small amount of power could be argued by the discontent of state representatives. The states passed almost all laws regarding trade whenever they saw fit. The central government was supposed to deal with issues concerning foreign trade but because of the ban of different imports of certain products as well as exports, this too became a struggle. The states having had most of the power did lack the ability to control foreign trade; this created a vicious cycle of states wanting foreign trade, so they passed the issue to the central government that didn’t have enough power because of the states. Each state had its very own trading policy creating no united policy that benefited all of the states as a unit. America was sinking in economic havoc, they had little income and products coming in that were so needed to keep the economy afloat.
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The inability to control trade was maybe the ultimate failure of the Articles of Confederation. The issue of trade was more important than the issue of flailing taxes for the following reasons. Trade is the ultimate income for a country’s government as well and its citizens. The government makes taxes off imported trade and the purchase of these products. The citizens may have bought these products and used them to create profit or even sell the actual items. Since the trade was such a needed thing for the citizens to create income had taxes at this time not been a pressing issue the people would simply not have the money to pay government issued taxes. The government without trade was unable to place taxes on the incoming products, since no products were being brought in. Trade was easily one of main reasons of the collapse of the Articles of Confederation.
The Articles of Confederation, the original attempt at a constitution in America failed for many reasons. The strongest reason that may have been the cause of the failure of the Articles was the inability to control trade. The states had too much power over smaller issues leaving the greater issues like trade as a pressing matter that was unable to be addressed.
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