During the American Revolution our nation governed itself using the Articles of Confederation. Take a moment to look over our readings and follow these instructions when commenting in the section below:
Identify a specific flaw or shortcoming in the Articles of Confederation that kept the government from being efficient (This will be your opinion). Then offer a guess at why they included that shortcoming in their government. What was their priority?
As is our practice we will reply and give feedback to two other commenters. It is totally expected that we will have similar ideas, don't worry about that at all. Simply we wish to attempt to offer as many unique perspectives on this topic.
A flaw in the articles of confederation was the governments inability to levy taxes, this made them unable to raise an army or provide any services, they did this because they wanted the government to have no power so it couldn't become tyrannical and making sure it had no money was a good way to do so.
ReplyDeleteThe ability to levy taxes could have been a massive advantage if the Articles of Confederation had this power.
DeleteI agree that the government wasn't given as much power so it couldn't become oppressive.
DeleteI agree that the main motive behind no giving the government as much power was so it could not become oppressive and dictator-like, almost like a monarchy.
DeleteTheir fear that history would repeat itself stifled their ability to create a functioning government.
DeleteI agree. It was difficult to really take full control when there wasn't too much they could do to force colonists.
DeleteI agree that without the financial services or military taxes could give they struggled
Deletei agree because if you can tax directly you can take power much easily then if you couldn't be able to do that.
DeleteOne flaw that the Articles of Confederation had was the overall lack of power given to the central government. The central government wasn't allowed to levy taxes, which meant that nothing could be funded. The lack of power the articles gave to the central government also meant that Great Britain could ignore the peace treaty. The lack of control the central government was given is due to the king's previous abuse of power on the states, which also includes taxes such as the Stamp and Townshend Acts. This fear of being oppressed by a powerful central government took form in the Articles of Confederation, where the central government was now granted little power.
ReplyDeleteI agree with this because the logic was rather then attempting to make checks on a strong government to prevent it from becoming oppresive the logic was "cant have an oppressive government if their is none"
DeleteThe fear of being oppressed by multiple powers is a fear that nearly everyone felt during the American Revolution. The central government should have had much more power.
DeleteI agree that one flaw was the lack of power. If a government has no power, it is really not a government, and the Articles did not address that.
DeleteI agree that without the ability to levy taxes they were basically powerless.
DeleteThe lack of power was a major flaw, and I especially agree with the point that this drastic limiting of power was born out of fear from their oppression at the hands of the British.
DeleteI agree that they didn't give the government much power or the ability to impose taxes so it couldn't become oppressive.
DeleteI agree that the main flaw in the Articles of Confederation was the lack of power given to the government, so that it wouldn't become oppressive.
DeleteOne major problem that the Articles of Confederation failed to solve is that each state had only one vote, despite size and population. This meant that population didn’t matter and each state would be considered as one vote. A state could easily become outvoted, even though they have a massive population. Obviously, the bigger states found this system to be extremely flawed, since that meant that they could be outvoted by smaller states. This made the bigger states feel oppressed.
ReplyDelete- Belinda
I agree and this can be clearly seen when a proposal by alexander Hamilton to introduce tariffs on foreign trade to finance the government was shot down by Rhode island.
DeleteI agree that the inequality in votes depending on population was one flaw as it left the bigger states unfairly represented, but if they were represented solely based on population the small states would have basically no say, and they would feel oppressed, just as the big states had felt.
DeleteI agree that the Articles of Confederation failed to solve the problem. Weather each states votes would be population based or they would have one vote. Picking one would be unfair to another and the articles of confederation didn't solve this problem.
DeleteI agree -- without distributing power properly throughout states by population, the Articles of Confederation failed to give people adequate power, and one could argue that it's inherently undemocratic.
DeleteI agree that the Articles of Confederation was not able to give both big and small states equal representation when it came down to voting.
DeleteI agree the votes/ population thing was a bad decision for the articles of confederation
DeleteOne problem the Articles of Confederation possessed was the inability to levy taxes. This in turn meant that the government had no true power. This meant that they had no money for a military or money to provide services to it's people. The colonials wanted the government to not be able to levy taxes, so it was a positive in their book, but it meant the government was very weak and had almost no power.
ReplyDeleteI agree because without levying taxes, they could not make sufficient amounts of money to have a military.
DeleteOne problem was that they had no power to enforce laws they made. What this means is a law could be made but under the Articles of Confederation the law couldn't be enforced. This is because there was no way for them to enforce them. A military couldn't be used because there wasn't enough money to afford a military. They couldn't levy taxes after all. So all laws made were meaningless and there was a choice to follow or not to follow the rules of the law.
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DeleteYes their military was weak. However, it was due to lack of consolidation and not strength. there military was persist in each state, they just were a cohesive unit. They could enforce state laws but when it came to federal issues, that when the problems started.
DeleteYes, having no military and not enough to keep colonists from disobeying made it incredibly difficult to really enforce their laws.
DeleteI agree that not being able to enforce laws was very detrimental
DeleteI agree, without the low to be enforced, the country was pretty vulnerable
Deletei agree because if you have a army them its easier to protect your people and its easier to enforce the law on the people.
Deletei agree with this opinion, with the low amount of enforcement and power the army had, people were not protected, and the laws were not enforced
DeleteA major flaw in the Articles of Confederation is that Congress was not given the ability to levy taxes. In an attempt to limit the power of the federal government to minimize the chance of the government becoming oppressive, the Articles of Confederation in turn did not grant the federal government the ability to do much good -- without tax money, there was little they could do to fund projects, create and provide services to the public, or create a military. Instead of attempting to find some balance between too much power and not enough, the Articles of Confederation opted for not enough, and eventually had to be repealed because of it.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the levied taxes could've been very beneficial to the nation.
DeleteOne problem with the Articles of Confederation was that the government couldn't levy taxes. With this the government didn't have as much power and they couldn't fund things like the military without taxes. I think the government had the inability to impose taxes so that they didn't have too much power and couldn't become oppressive.
ReplyDeleteOne problem with the articles of confederation was that the government could not levy taxes. This greatly limited the power, as they could not create a military, fund projects, or help the citizens. The government had very little money due to this, and very little money meant almost no power, which was a big flaw.
ReplyDeleteI agree, and if the government cannot levy taxes, there really are not many things it can do. It can't create public infrastructure, one of the most important governmental duties.
DeleteOne problem with the articles of confederation was the insufficient amount of power the government received. They could not do things like levy taxes or enforce laws they made. They most likely included this shortcoming in fear of the government becoming corrupt. They wanted to avoid being ruled like they had been by the British, so they limited the power the government had. This inability to truly govern the country made the government inefficient.
ReplyDeleteI agree, and if the government cannot govern, what is the point of being the United States rather than just the States?
DeleteI agree, but it would probably not be a good idea to give all the power to individual states because they could form another government within themselves and seperate themselves from the main government. (See the Civil War.)
DeleteI believe that one flaw in the articles of confederation was the omission of giving the government an army as well as a right to levy taxes. Without consolidating an army or an economy the United States of America are left vulnerable. However, they had a strong basis behind why they did this. The American's had just been screwed by British taxes and were not trusting enough to give their own government the tools to do the same. The same happened to be true for their Army. Overall, they did not want to make the same mistakes twice. However, the issue with that is you can not build a sturdy government with the expectation that you should be able to easily revolt against it.
ReplyDeleteOne shortcoming of the Articles of Confederation was the lack of a national army. As shown in the revolutionary war, though militia were hugely effective, the army was still necessary, both as a symbol and as an actual fighting force. This shortcoming was almost certainly deliberate, as the creators of the Articles of Confederation wanted to make sure oppressive policies could not be enforced with a military,
ReplyDeleteI agree, this definitely could've given the government the power they needed as well as a handy dandy tool to keep the states in check.
DeleteA flaw in the Articles of Confederation was their lack of total power. They weren't able to really act as authority because there was little they could do to really force colonists to obey their rules.
ReplyDeleteOne Flaw of the Articles of Confederation is the total lack of power the central government had, this lead to their general sense of “we aren’t one unified state just a bunch of states loosely related” which greatly weakened all of their societal and international power
ReplyDeleteOne flaw that the Articles of Confederation had was the low amounts of power given to the central government. The central government wasn't allowed to levy taxes so nothing could be funded and Great Britain could bot acknowledge the peace treaty given to them from the United States. The new country feared of being oppressed again by a powerful central government so in the Articles of Confederation, the government was given low amounts of power so to not be oppressed again.
ReplyDeleteone of the shortcoming with the articles was that all the things they placed rules to be followed yet they didn't clearly specify how they would be followed or who would enforce them or even when they would start being enforced.
ReplyDeletei think this was done because they wanted to be more open and not be forcing laws or acts on the newly freed colonists
DeleteI agree, they should have made it less vague because it caused and still causes so many problems
Deleteone flaw that the article of confederation had was the miniature amount of power that was given to the central government. The young country, still in the fear of being in a state of oppression by a government with a big amount of power led to a weak government. a certain amount of oppression was needed in order to maintain a good, stable country.
ReplyDeleteI agree that although they wanted to avoid being like the British as best as possible, they needed to do some things similarly. They still needed to give power to a central government to enforce laws and levy taxes.
DeleteOne of the shortcomings of the Articles of Confederation was when it made it so congress didn't have control of the national army. This was a silly and unnecessary thing to do, even if they had some sort of jointed PTSD about government armies oppressing them. The army could've been operated with a stronger power, and maybe even commanded better. Although the colonists might have been scared of the militaristic power that would come with that, it would be better for everyone if they had a little bit of might behind their words as well.
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DeleteI agree that it would have been smarter to have a national army. This also connects to the Articles of Confederation not letting the government levy taxes because if they did that, they could have afforded a stronger army and raised more money for other things that could have improved the country.
DeleteOne shortcoming in the Articles of Confederation that kept the government from being efficient was not giving the federal government the power to tax. The writers didn't want the national government to force them to pay certain taxes because that is what Parliament did in England. They didn't want to be taxed without consent. They feared that they would be repeating what the English did to them, but they still should have allowed the government to levy taxes because they then could have raised money for services including the military.
ReplyDeleteYes I think that was a downfall and people would be happier being taxed by them because they would receive representation in the gov.
DeleteI agree, because taxation is very important to making a country whole
DeleteI think the biggest shortcoming/flaw displayed in the Articles of Confederation was the fact that there were no executive branch to enforce any of the implemented actions by congress. I believe that their goal was to be less controlling of the people but all in all you still need people to enforce the laws. This shortcoming also made it almost impossible to implement the decisions leaders (congressmen) have come to an agreement on and decided it was best for the nation and its citizens.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, the flaw in the government was the lack of power it was granted. The idea of a United American People was only an idea, because the government couldn't tax the people, so while they were under a similar system with leaders they elected, the central government wasn't strong enough and tech different states wouldn't be part of the world
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