Take a look at this question, and answer fully on this blog. Feel free to respond to your classmates' answers as well. Here goes:
"Some historians contend that the Constitution, by providing the structure of government and powers necessary to perpetuate a strong union, 'saved' the fledgling American Republic from collapse and ruin under the Articles of Confederation. Evaluate this argument utilizing your knowledge of the problems of the United States in the 1780’s."
Post your answer by Fri. evening, 10/8, please. Can't wait to see this!!
Knowledge is power...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
11 comments:
I definitely agree that the constitution saved America from an eventual collapse. Some important changes included the proper representation of states in Congress, and the amount of state agreement needed to pass laws.
In the Articles of Confederation, each state had one vote in Congress regardless of size or population. You may see how this could be an issue. The more people that there are in a state, the more views and opinions there are. If these opinions aren’t represented, it is very unfair.
An issue that receives little attention to my surprise is that 100% of the representatives needed to agree in order for a law to be passed under the Articles of Confederation. Though this seems to be an ideal system, even for me, this is very unrealistic. This is probably a major reason that the Articles of Confederation needed to be replaced. They were having trouble passing ANY rights!!
On the other hand, the Constitution was a risky but beneficial step for America. This was the first governmental system known to man that was separated into 3 parts. I’m sure we can all agree that this is a noteworthy innovation. The 3 branches of government allow us to constantly check on our authority figures (in a sense), and ultimately keeps any one piece of our government from going mad with power.
America saw several other benefits when she began operating under the constitution as well. So, I think it’s fair to say that it truly saved us from an awful failure.
annette riddle
The articles of Confederation failed as a government structure. Inability to raise taxes or regulate commerce coupled with the fact that they had no military ultimately led to the end of The articles and the beginning of the Constitution. After the events of Shays' rebellion people realized that the Articles as they were weren't what the new nation needed. It required tweaking to make it a m'more perfect union" Instead the Articles were scraped for the Constitution which was unlike any other document written before and saved the United States from utter collapse.
If the Articles had not been scraped and merely changed then it would not have been as effective as a 3 branch government and a strong military. Under the Articles states were entirely separated from each/other knit together only by a weak government. The states would have drifted apart and ultimately would have become separate countries! They would have had no political power and the United states of America would be lost forever
I would not necessarily say that the Constitution "saved" America from ruin under the Articles of Confederation, but rather it "improved" our nation. Obviously, there were some problems with the Articles of Confederation. Representation of states was equal all across the board, making the larger states unhappy. The Articles were unable to issue taxes, leaving the government without a sure way to gain revenue. States were able to make their own laws, creating conflicts when different state laws contradicted each other. The Articles of Confederation definitely had its weaknesses. However, not everybody was horribly scared over the first "Constitution" until a single event: Shay's Rebellion. This rebellion threw everyone into a panic because they thought because of one event, our whole country was falling into anarchy. This was not true, but all the people against the Articles portrayed it that way. And everyone believed them. America started pushing for a strong central government to control the "rise of anarchy". With so many supporters, a scrapping of the Articles was inevitable. What people did not see in their panic, however, was the brightening picture of our nation before the drafting of the Constitution. America's economy was actually improving quite well. Foreign trade was starting to pick up speed. Poverty was turning into prosperity. Lots of good things were happening prior to the second Constitution. With that said, I still believe the Constitution was necessary for the union of the states. Without it, America would not be the strong nation it is today. However, the assertion that the Constitution heroicly "saved" our nation from anarchy and ruin is a false statement.
In my opinion I do believe that the Articles of Confederation would have eventaully lead to the distruction of the states. Beings that they each governed themselves and were seperate from one another, they had no need for defending each other anymore. Its like highschool drama these days, if it starts with 2 groups of people your group of friends don't want to be brought into that little battle. It would just hurt you if you had nothing to do with it. So why would a state want to help another state in their little battle against say the Spanish or the French? They wouldn't, so there really is no unity with the Articles of Confederation. Also they didn't really have any revenue, an army, equality for larger and small states, and the different laws states made were conflicting with each other. When they created the Articles of Confederation they basically took everything they didn't from the British ruling and erased it leaving what they wanted, which didn't really give a strong leadership or unity for the states to become a strong nation.
So I think ultimately getting rid of the Articles lead to a strong, unifed, pretty well run group of states at the time. Wrting the Constitution with a 3 part government probably sounded pretty crazy back then, but it was actaully a well thought out government. Lucky for us it worked or we as a whole would have fell apart into seperate little countries probably fighting over land and money all the time. The large states and small states were given a compromise, for the house of repersentatives you got your votes based on your population (for the large states) and for senate you get 2 per state ( for the small states). So they both got what they wanted. The government was allowed to tax, but not overly tax. The government was divided up into 3 branches that would check each other constently, making sure that not one group of people got power hungry. A strong army was eventaully acheived. So with the Constitution the states were ultimately unifed, so no state could just break off in leave they were now all in it together. They had each others back! I believe that without unity from the Constitution the states would have fell apart, so it "saved" the country in my opinion. I strongly believe that because just like any sports team, if you don't have unity, you eventaully fall apart and see nothing but "L" down your game record. There would be no "W".
The Articles of Confederation were the first milestone in a united America as they transformed the colonies into states and created the idea of a central government that binds all the vastly different states together. However, under the oppressive rule of England, the Americans weren’t too eager to go back to a supremely powerful central government so they gave little power to it ultimately forming more of a “friendship” than an actual union. This left taxes, trade, military issues, and other regulations up to the individual states to decide, meaning that every single state had different laws, treaties, and individual constitutions. Ultimately, this lack of all around unity led to rebellions until it was finally decided that something needed to be done because America was on the verge of collapse. So came the Constitution, a document that gave the central government fair powers, created the three branches, gave fair representation to each state in Congress, and ultimately unified these essentially independent states under one set of national laws. The government could now fairly represent and protect the interests and well-being of every American citizen on a national level; it truly became a government “of the people, by the people, for the people” and therefore, the people became contently unified.
In the long run the Constitution did save the 'American Republic'. Without the Constitution we would have probably been ruled by a 'bandage' up Articles of Confederation. Our country did not need something that was bandage up, we needed a strong document that could be changed, but not to the extent that it is a totally different document. Also before the Constitution was invented a thing called Shay's Rebellion happens. The wealthy elite start to think "OMG these people are going to kill us and take all of our money." In the long run the wealthy elite started to want a more powerful government to make it so that this would not happen. It also saved the wealthy elite from mobocracy. Also in the Articles of Confederation there was an amendment saying that the government could not enforce taxes on its citizens, in the constitution the Congress is given the right to do this so that we do not go into debt, like we were in before the constitution was formed.
The Articles of Confederation "saved" the fledgling American Republic in the 1780's. The country needed a central government to join the 13 loosely unrelated states into some kind of union. A central government was needed to administer these states. However, too strong a central government would have scared the patriots because they had just finished a war with a monarch and did not want a government that in any way resembled the government of Britain. They needed a government in which the sovereignty would rest upon the people. They needed a government whose authority did not rest with a King or one executive. There was no Executive or Judicial branch created for the Federal government. That power was left up to the states, which required annual elections so that the legislators would stay in touch with the mood of the people. The articles did not supply restrictions to trading with other nations and the Americans were no longer bound by the Navigation Acts but could no longer trade with Britain. So, each state had the right to trade freely with other countries. Also, there was distaste for taxes, which was necessary to earn needed revenue. Americans were preaching natural rights and questioned authority. The political system was wide open and by 1786 hard times had set in. The Congress was not that strong because each state had a single vote and all bills dealing with subjects of importance required the support of nine states. The articles of Confederation proved to be a landmark in government. It was a model for a loose confederation. Even though the Articles were ineffective they were the best things for the mood of the country after the Revolution. One of the very positive things that Congress did pass was the Land Ordinance of 1785. With this ordinance acreage was given up by larger states to the Federal government and that land was then parceled and sold off to help pay off the Federal debt. This was a model of how a government should relate to it's territories and help played down the national debt.
I think that the Constitution saved the American Republic. Before the Constitution was created, the states were held together by the Articles of Confederation. The Articles of Confederation were not a very effective form of government because they formed a very loose confederation of states and gave the central government very little authority. This caused problems, especially when Shay’s Rebellion occurred and Massachusetts had a difficult time stopping it. This was because states did not work together to try to stop it since they didn’t see it as their problem. The Constitution fixed the inability of the states to work together by creating a much stronger central government that had much more authority over the states. This saved the American Republic and helped it stay together for more than 200 years after.
I feel that while the America was doing well before the Constitution, it worked well for America in the long-run to make a new Constitution with a more powerful central government.
Under the Articles of Confederation, the government was not allowed to tax...so how could they generate revenue? Is that not a nessecity to a nation?
Also, all of the states had to agree on a certain issue, and each only had 1 vote. This made the larger states angry, because they felt that they deserved more of a say in government, because they are representing more people. Also, it took quite a while to make certain decisions due to the seperate states voting...and the states usually disagreed.
I'm a bit torn in my opinion. On one hand I want to say the Constitution did save us, but on the other, would it have really mattered? Despite the fighting that would have followed, Americans could have lowered their aspirations and lived off the wild, instead of being all about money money money, which was one of the main flaws in the Articles of Confederation. I mean, Britian WAS dumb enough to give Indians guns, so siding with them wouldn't be "as" much as a hassle I suppose. A world without politics or money would be nice.
On the other hand, we would not be where we are today without the Constitution. It fixed most if not all the flaws with the Articles of Conf. and allowed us to progress extremely far as a union of states. It's also a given that we're one of the most powerful nations because we fixed our problems before it was too late.
I don't think that the constitution totally saved America, it did help to some extent though. If it had not been created maybe America would have collapsed but we will never know. The Articles definitely weren't working though and the constitution did come through and save America.
Post a Comment