Articles of Confederation replacement by U.S Constitution

The articles of confederation were the first United States the original constitution document
formed under the agreement of the then 13 states in the year 1777 and became operative on 1
march 17781 when all 13 states signed the deal. It was adopted after the presentation of the
first draft of articles of confederation to the continental congress a year earlier. Its main
contents were the terms and agreements by the 13 states new states that initially entered into
agreement leading to formation of the current United States. (Thomas, and Grier Stephenson’s
article, 2015)
The main agreement term agreed upon was the precipitation in their centralized form of
government as greed by the states. Other than this other terms outlined by the articles stated
that: every state was to retain its sovereignty and all the free including independency, for a
state to part and parcel of the U.S, the article stated that she had to sign the agreement.
The effectives of this Articles of Confederation last from1781 to 1789 was acted as the U.S basis
of their nation even during America Revolution war. The terms and conditions provided in the
articles seemed not to have worked very well with the states. Therefore, a number of issues
had begun to arise and by June 25 1778, a three committee was formed to propose a
ratification form for the articles of confederation due to the following. Among the major issues

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which led to the ratification was the question of reconciliation of majority rule and minority
rights. The states started demanding reflection consent of those who were governed to simply
find a way to avoid the majority tyranny. With this, the centralized government was considered
very weak as the majority of the state powers rested with U.S states.
The demanded powers of taxations were also major issues. According to the article, the
congress powers were limited and did not have absolute powers to tax that implied that no
finance could put in order.
Passing of any law required the approval by 9 states or the entire 13 number. This evidently
showed the difficulty in meeting this requirement provided in the article of confederation and
made it more difficult to even the running of any government business. This also contributed to
the ratification and eventually replacement of the article.
Commerce regulation in the individual local states gave the congress a lot of difficulty as it had
no power to exercise over such activities and this resulted to competition amongst the states.
Each state, therefore engaged in different commercial activities with the aim of outdoing each
other regardless of where the business was lawful or not. This resulted to number of
diplomatic issues which gave the government a difficult time. (Holcombe, Randall G, 1991)
Another limitation that came up was the argument on the originality. Some argued that a lot of
borrowings from brain could no longer work with the then current U.S.
Also, the majority of the states strongly proposed the declaration of independency through
republican from their respective local governments. Finally, the centralized power of the U.S
provided by the article of confederation that is, unicameral nature of law making arm of the U.S
government outlined by the article could not work with the states any more. This implied that

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the there were non-separate powers between the executive, legislature and the judiciary which
was vied as unfit for the states.
gnoring of basic human rights also not left behind in the contributions of the replacement of
this Articles of Confederation. The article of confederation did not constitutionally protect the
individual citizen’s basic rights. This led some communities such as the Massachusetts, to
commit a section of their constitution to simple declare their human rights as the inhabitants of
their local state. This was in accordance with the article of confederation and was seen as
betrayal and not being loyal to the then U.S rule of law. But in reality, all these happened
because the article failure in most of its steps it took.( Thomas H. Anderson, 1985)
Even though the article of confederation failed, it also had its own advantages but its defects
and the weaknesses of this article of confederation were much more as compared to its success
as explained above. Other minor that also considered to have taken part in this replacement
can therefore for summarized in a list as outlined below; it provided for only a single vote for
each state regardless of the size though some states were much bigger compared to others, no
independent power tax for the national government, no force action could be taken against
the state that disobeyed the rule law by the national government, absence of national army or
navy to safeguard the entire state which was very risk in terms of security reasons, lack of
strong leadership among the congress to collectively governed the nation, that is no president
and different m currency used in different states also contributed to the replacement of the
article of confederation. And because the new proposed constitution had outlined almost all
this, the article of confederation found it difficult to win peoples trust in the United State hence
eventually replaced.

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References

1. Mason, Alpheus Thomas,and Grier Stephenson. American constitutional law:
   introductory essays and selected cases. Routledge, 2015.
2. Holcombe, Randall G. “Constitutions as constraints: A case study of three American
   Constitutions.”Constitutional Political Economy 2.3 (1991)
3. Armbruster, Bonnie B., and Thomas H. Anderson. “Producing ‘considerate’expository
   text: Or easy reading is damned hard writing.” Journal of Curriculum Studies 17.3 (1985):