Articles of Confederation

Articles of Confederation

In 1764 the British passed an act entitled, The Stamp Act, that imposed taxes on different printed materials, consequently the colonies saw this as a violation on their rights. The Stamp Act then sparked many violent outbursts on American soil. Years later in 1774, after the Boston Tea Party, a series of laws meant to punish Massachusetts colonist passed by the British Parliament, the Intolerable Acts. Consequently the AMericans decided to govern themselves with the Articles of Confederation. Although a significant number of historians would see the Articles of Confederation as a purposely weak government and never meant to govern as the states were each sovereign, however an effective government was a strong central government which was able to impose its will on its peoples and other nations, thus the Articles would certainly be an ineffective governance. The Articles of Confederation were not an effective form of government because it gave most of the power to state governments, it offered no system of courts in the jurisdiction of the national government, and because it was not able to provide a military for the country.

The Articles of Confederation were created to give most of the power to state governments, making it not a very useful form of government. The Articles of Confederation lacked something very important; a strong central government. The Articles only gave power to the national government when it came to foreign policy. The states, meanwhile, handled matters of trade and most domestic policy on their own. The money in the United States was not able to hold its own value; therefore brought the American economy down (1). It made it difficult to maintain any form of central government with no proper taxation, and an individual judicial branch.

The Articles of Confederation offered no system of courts in the jurisdiction of the national government. This meant that the entire judiciary branch was dependent on the individual states. According to Article IV, “Full faith and credit

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