Article of Confederation
The Pros and Cons
The Pros of the Article of Confederation
- Able to build and control any army
- Had the ability to deal with foreign countries on behalf of the states
- Limited Government
- states kept their power
The cons of the Article of Confederation
- National government couldn’t enforce laws so even if ratified, states could ignore them
- National government couldn’t tax
- Needed 9 out of 13 states approval to pass a law
- Needed all 13 in order to amend a law
- No executive or judicial branch
- caused the states to suffer economically especially when each state started taxing one another and hurting trade
- The US had common currency issues
Why I feel they created a government with a weak central government
It was mostly a weak government but not entirely, it prevented the states from from going rouge and creating their own diplomacy. I don't think that they thought it would end up like this. It was a number of things that led it to fail including that it was the first form of government since the British tried to overthrow the American colonies. Everyone wanted different things in their government and didn't really talk or converse about it so they could fix the problems and make it a functional government. Instead it was all disagreement and there were more disadvantages than advantages.