Mr.Smith
DBQ #2
"From 1781 to 1789 the articles of Confederation provided the United States with an effective government". I disagree with this quote because the articles was to weak to keep the nation unified which made the article a failure. The Articles were set up intentionally to be weak because of the memory of a strong central government of the British. The articles were to weak to govern effectively so it did not have the ability to carry out designs with out controversy from other states. This caused major problems later down the road for America. The Articles did had some good points to it like the Land Ordinance of 1785 but it was ultimately a failure due to financial, foreign, and domestic problem the Articles had made. The Articles could not provide Congress to tax. This led to major problems for America after the American Revolution. The government acquired a large amount of debt from the American Revolution. The only taxes that could be collected was the the amount of money each state wanted to pay. This led to America not paying off their large debt when the Articles of Confederation was in place. The other problem the Articles provided was that each state can print out there own money. The only way to pay off there debt at the time was to print out more money which caused inflation. This caused confusion on the act that each state had to figure out how much money each states currency is worth. This opened the door to trading problems between states and other countries. The states depended on trade for their main source of revenue but the states did not have direct control over trade, so the states seen very little revenue which in turn did not help Americas big debt. Doc A (Letter from the Rhode Island Assembly to Congress) under the articles of Confederation the central government could not levy taxes because to need unanimous votes and Rhode Island objected so the bill did not pass. The Shays Rebellion was also due to the