November 15,1777 there was a sheet of paper constructed that would change our day to day lives, the Articles of Confederation. It was written as a system of checks and balances to protect us from our own government. To find some type of sense of a unified government. We needed some type of say and the higher ups finally saw that. Making this was some sort of representation from us, the people. We needed to learn how to function as an independent country.
The Articles of Confederation just like anything had it’s weakness and some strong good plans. At this time citizens were kind of opposed to it because of the fear of having another tyrant or “big government.” Since that was an issue they lacked power in the beginning. Another issue was they has no national courts. That meant every state could literally interpret national laws. There’s no communication throughout the states. They didn’t even have an executive power, meaning laws weren’t the same in every states. They each enforced the policies differently.
You have to keep in mind that these people had “no template”. They had no type of guidance. They actually had many strengths for example they signed a treaty of alliance in 1778 with France, “they” as in the government. Gaining their independence to become their own country. The American Revolutionary war was ended and everything of the colonial empire was destroyed. Another one was the passing of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787. This allowed them to let the Northwest territories kind of organized themselves. Another big, they gained their independence from a whole country. That’s lowkey pretty awesome.
The Article that was the most important to the constitution was definitely Article 1 especially in the modern world. This article gave congress limits and their powers. They established the first three branches of the government, the Legislative, the Senate and the House of Representatives. It’s crazy to think that if you want your voice heard, their accessible. They have one of the strongest powers, they create law for the entire country. It outlines the organizations powers and responsibilities of these lawmakers.
The reason why this is the most important is because people get to be represented. There wouldn’t be any accurate way to know how the states felt about certain topics, views, or issues. It gave them limits. Section 10 in Article 1 Clause 2 states; States may not collect or taxes on imports or exports. Is an example on how they limited them as a whole.
This shows the unification they had coming up. Section 8 specifies the policies in great detail. Saying how their powers are limited but powerful. The fact that they have the power to set taxes, tariffs and other means of raising federal revenue, and to authorize the expenditure of all federal funds is wild. Clause 13 in Section 8 is to provide and maintain an army. The military’s purpose is to simply keep America safe. Before doing this assignment I honestly didn’t really appreciate the military. Having a strong military makes better sure that foreign nations keeps their promises to our country.
Clause 4, Section 8 states: Congress being authorized to establish an uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States, it may well be questioned how far the states can possess any concurrent authority, on these subjects.
This basically means to bring together two things that have a little in common. Congress has the power to set up process for immigrants to be a citizen. They set rules for indebted people and businesses to declare bankruptcy. It’s so much harder for people to try to escape those credit card debts by just declaring bankruptcy.
I feel like this Article just had so much to do with how America was trying to atleast make this country have some type of instruction. Even though some of it doesn’t really apply now, there was a reason then. It created the foundation of how we run America today. I mean we’re not exactly perfect but do you see how far we came since then? We only can get better in my opinion.
