The Articles Of Confederation

Below is a free term papers summary of the paper "The Articles Of Confederation." If you sign up, you can be reading the rest of this term papers in under two minutes. Registered users should login to view this term paper.

Term Paper Title	The Articles Of Confederation
# of Words	737
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	2.95

The Articles of Confederation

The Articles of
Confederation was the first constitution of the United States
of America. The Articles of Confederation were first drafted
by the Continental Congress in Philadelphia Pennsylvania in
1777. This first draft was prepared by a man named John
Dickinson in 1776. The Articles were then ratified in 1781.
The cause for the changes to be made was due to state
jealousies and widespread distrust of the central authority.
This jealousy then led to the emasculation of the document.
As adopted, the articles provided only for a "firm league of
friendship" in which each of the 13 states expressly held "its
sovereignty, freedom, and independence." The People of
each state were given equal privileges and rights, freedom of
movement was guaranteed, and procedures for the trials of
accused criminals were outlined. The articles established a
national legislature called the Congress, consisting of two to
seven delegates from each state; each state had one vote,
according to its size or population. No executive or judicial
branches were provided for. Congress was charged with
responsibility for conducting foreign relations, declaring war
or peace, maintaining an army and navy, settling boundary
disputes, establishing and maintaining a postal service, and
various lesser functions. Some of these responsibilities were
shared with the states, and in one way or another Congress
was dependent upon the cooperation of the states for
carrying out any of them. Four visible weaknesses of the
articles, apart from those of organization, made it impossible
for Congress to execute its constitutional duties. These were
analyzed in numbers 15-22 of The FEDERALIST, the
political essays in which Alexander Hamilton, James
Madison, and John Jay argued the case for the U.S.
CONSTITUTION of 1787. The first weakness was that
Congress could legislate only for states, not for individuals;
because of this it could not enforce legislation. Second,
Congress had no power to tax. Instead, it was to assess its
expenses and divide those among the states on the basis of
the value of land. States were then to tax their own citizens
to raise the money for these expenses and turn the proceeds
over to Congress. They could not be forced to do so, and in
practice they rarely met their obligations. Third, Congress
lacked the power to control commerce--without its power
to conduct foreign relations was not necessary, since most
trea...

This is not the end of the termpaper! Register below to see the complete version of this term paper.

Membership Plans	Credit Card	Check

1 month membership

3 month membership (You Save 50%)

6 month membership (You Save 67%)

Copyright © 2002-2007 Mid Term Papers. All rights reserved. This term papers website is used for research purposes only.
If you have forgotten your username or password, please click here.
If you like to cancel your account, please click here.

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13 - 14 - 15 - 16 - 17 - 18 - 19 - 20 - 21 - 22