Question

Describe at least TWO weaknesses of the articles of confederation AND explain why those weaknesses were written into that governing document.

Answer 1

In the articles of Confederation they basically gave more power to the states and the Federal government had less power. Congress had no power to regulate taxes and trade. Why was this? Basically after the Revolutionary War many of the people were fearful that their President might get too much power, so they wanted to give more power to states as opposed to Federal government to prevent another Monarchy they decided states should have power over the government. Now this caused a problem between state and government creating this sort of sectionalism.  Due to states having more power than the Federal government the Federal government could pass a law but the states could ignore that law because they had more power. States were given more power not only out of fear of another monarchy but also because the people were too afraid that having a more powerful government would lead to the government taking advantage of that power to restrict your basic human rights. Thus in order to counteract this states had the most power, but this wasn't entirely the best idea with states having their system of so called self governing they also had their own taxes and currency. For example in New York they might have a different currency then let's say Pennslyvania. This made trading between states quite difficult because a universal currency wasn't established. These problems involving the distribution of power and the currency eventually lead to the Whiskey Rebellion which showed the Americans that perhaps it is neccessary to have a strong federal government to steer our nation on the right path.