Articles Of Confederation Dbq
Articles of Confederation Essay When the Revolutionary War was over and the Americans had won their independence, the revolutionists and republicans leading the new country were quite convinced that their government should differ from that of Britain and have a limited amount of power. Clearly, these men took these ideals more seriously than they should have. They created a constitution for the 13 states known as the Articles of Confederation, which put the majority of power in the hands of these individual states. They were adopted in 1777 after the war and enacted in 1781. The Articles of Confederation were quite a success pertaining to western lands, but proved unbeneficial for the economy of our new country. Once the war was over, many
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So, they made sure this wouldn’t happen by giving the government very little power over the citizens, also giving the states the power to create their own constitutions, have their own forms of executive and legislature, and coin their own money. This proved terrible for the economy of the new country, for it was already in an enormous post-war debt. Congress could not enforce laws, regulate interstate trade (resulting in various tariffs between the states), or tax people directly, and the only way to change any of these rules was if all states approved of such a change. Each state had its own currency, causing havoc for trade in a country that was already forced to borrow money from others. Some states such as Massachusetts issued very high taxes, trying to collect specie even from the war veterans and farmers who could not be paid due to Congress’s inability to tax people directly, ending up in tragedy such as Shays’ Rebellion. This led to fears of anarchy and a “mobocracy.” The state governments and Congress were forced to print a huge amount of paper money, leading to the worst inflation in U.S. history between 1778 and 1783. America’s trade deficit was also astoundingly high during this period of time. It is very evident that the U.S. economy suffered under the Articles of
So, they made sure this wouldn’t happen by giving the government very little power over the citizens, also giving the states the power to create their own constitutions, have their own forms of executive and legislature, and coin their own money. This proved terrible for the economy of the new country, for it was already in an enormous post-war debt. Congress could not enforce laws, regulate interstate trade (resulting in various tariffs between the states), or tax people directly, and the only way to change any of these rules was if all states approved of such a change. Each state had its own currency, causing havoc for trade in a country that was already forced to borrow money from others. Some states such as Massachusetts issued very high taxes, trying to collect specie even from the war veterans and farmers who could not be paid due to Congress’s inability to tax people directly, ending up in tragedy such as Shays’ Rebellion. This led to fears of anarchy and a “mobocracy.” The state governments and Congress were forced to print a huge amount of paper money, leading to the worst inflation in U.S. history between 1778 and 1783. America’s trade deficit was also astoundingly high during this period of time. It is very evident that the U.S. economy suffered under the Articles of