The Articles of Confederation

Under the Articles of Confederation, American colonists failed politically, economically, and diplomatically, resulting in hostile foreign affairs and depression.

The Articles created a weak central government that in turn did not have enough power to enforce laws or create a confident political system. Part of the reason for a weak central government was because they had no executive department for leadership. The Founding Fathers reason for lack of an executive branch was for the same reason America wanted to break free from Britain; they were worrisome about a monarchy being formed. As a result, nobody withheld the power to carry out the laws passed by Congress. Not being able to raise an army only hurt the government under the Articles even more. Without an army present, colonists did not fear government and therefore were not willing to cope with government law. Another major issue was the lack of a judicial branch. The Judicial branches main goal is to interpret and apply laws. Without laws being practiced, forced, and applied, why even bother following them? The last problem with a weak government was that in order for Congress to take action, there needed to be a 9/13 majority vote from the states. This was a problem because some states were smaller and some were bigger. The bigger states favored laws that would favor them in more representation in congress and so on. The smaller states favored equality amongst all 13 states. With the constant conflict between the bigger and smaller states, it was always difficult to come to an agreeable decision between the states. Clearly, the lack of a central government proved that the Articles of Confederation was a weak constitution that needed central government power to enforce laws and ensure political success within America.

More or less, the government failed economically under the Articles because they could not levy taxes or control commerce. Because the government could not enforce laws, they could not make citizens pay revenue or taxes for government. This was a serious dent in the governmental system because if you can’t tax or raise revenue from the people, then eventually there WILL be no government left to do as much as even propose laws. This proved to be crippling to the governments success after the Revolutionary War. The Revolutionary War put America in a financial crisis that we are still in today, and resulted in the depression of 1785-87. The depression