American Revolution

Articles of Confederation

When others look at the United States, they see a country of great power, yet the United States was not always this powerful. Considering the fact that the Articles of Confederation was the first type of government that the Americans created for themselves, it was not the most effective type of government; however, it was not all bad either. The Articles were least effective in the economic and political regions, but was successful in the Land Ordinance of 1785.

Economically, America was suffering since the Central Government had no power to tax, no power to regulate trade, and no national currency. Since the Central Government could not tax, the government could not raise money to pay back their war debt. However, the state did have the power to tax their citizens, and as a result of over taxing in Massachusetts, it led to Shays Rebellion. In Shays Rebellion, they liberated imprisoned debtors from jail and became a revolt. On account that the Central Government could not tax, the states took it upon themselves to tax each other, and would place tariffs on each other's goods. States were able to regulate trade amongst themselves and came to their own agreements with disregard to other states. In addition to their economic problems is the problem of a currency. The Central Government did not have the power to issue a standard currency out to the states, and as a result, states issued their own paper money. This issuing out of different currencies for each state made it hard for the people to move around from one state to another, because they always had to change currencies. Another problem with the difference in currency is that one could be worth more than another, because some states could back up their money more than another could.

From a political stand point, the Articles of Confederations did not do any better than the economics of the Articles. The Articles required that in order for anything to pass, would need to have a unanimous vote, there was no executive branch to enforce laws, and there were boundary disputes between the states. Having a unanimous vote is extremely hard to achieve, because there is usually one state that has to be the stubborn one, during this time, that state was Rhode Island. This was probably one of the biggest flaws