The Articles of Confederation Research Paper

In the fall of 1777, history was made by making the Article of Confederation, which is known as the first constitution in America. While it laid out some rules for the country, it had many flaws of which caused discord. But later in America’s history, the congress of that time learned their mistakes and did their best to correct them by making the Constitution. The Article of Confederation were made for federal and state power, while still being unified. All the while the Constitution was modified to having federal and state power, and basic rights for citizens. So both of these documents helped the American country, but the Article of Confederation was still full of holes, so the question is what issues of the reign of Great Britain influenced the Article of Confederation and helped the creation of the Constitution?

The reign of Great Britain was absolute, but not perfect. Having a monarchical reign in the 13 colonies was already a disadvantage since there is too much freedom controlling a piece of land overseas yet alone around 5,000 miles away. Gershweski’s model supports my statement by showing three factors that all successful autonomous countries have. First having the support of the general population, which Great Britain had, which was the British. Next was, gathering wealthier civilians in the regime, and lastly was controlling the opposing population. This was the downfall of the Great Britain reign by not satisfying the rebels in America thus having the outcome of America making their own independent nation without the help of Great Britain.

A Democracy ensures the rights of each individual citizen and while respecting different opinions, and guaranteeing the safety of the minorities. A democracy also lets the majority of the population choose the laws by exercising their freedom of speech. This was completely different from a monarchical government that was being used in Great Britain where the rights of the nation were in the hands of one person, who sovereigns the whole nation. An almost tyrannical form of government was seen as a weak type of government to the colonists. The colonists finally came to a conclusion and decided to become a democratic government. The colonists finally came to a conclusion and decided to become a democratic government. In number 10 of the Federalist Papers, the article expresses that each man must have the same rights. This means that there are no differences between the wealthy or the rich; all civilians have the same rights. To help enhance the democratic leadership there were changes made in America’s political world. Each person would be able to choose who they wanted as a representative of their choice, or in other words, have the chance of voting for their favored candidate to represent their ideals. Examples of these are senates, mayors, governors, and even the president. Number 62 is a specific example that can be used as an example for this topic of how the senate protects the sovereignty of the states to have proportional representation.  This signifies that even a small state will have an equal opinion next to a large state.

Throughout the reign of Great Britain, Americans were starting to see the faults inside Great Britain's so-called, ‘government.’ Great Britain had just one central government, which was the king at that time. Having one opinion about something doesn’t really help with helping the voices of the citizens. The Articles of Confederation made a new rule of having a state and national government. In number 17 of the Federalist Papers, Hamilton speaks about how national governments wouldn’t really want to listen to the opinions of every single citizen in each state, so by breaking down the government with a representative in each state, it would be much easier to hear the voices of the people. The state governments will have a greater influence than the national government due to the proximity of leaders in the local area. There are fewer people to lead in a state rather than a country.  But this doesn’t cancel out the power of the national government. In number 18 of the Federal Papers basically states that you may have very strong state governments, but they're useless if your central government is weak. This means that like the issue of number 17 of having the fear of the national government becoming tyrannical, number 18 shows the fear of the country becoming archaic, in other words without government or power.

Although the Article of Federation was the first constitution in America’s founding, it was still incomplete and weak. Number 21 of the Federalist Papers speaks about this by saying that the Articles of Confederation have no meaning and are thus useless when enforcing the safety and assurance of civilians. There is no way to punish disobedience due to how weak the power of the Articles of Confederation is. This is one of many reasons why the Articles of Confederation were not a good government document to withstand the civil order of the country. But it laid the basic groundwork for the Constitution which was a major success which is still used today after more than two centuries. The Articles of Confederation was a great learning experience for the future success of America.