Description
Please respond to this classmates post.
Hi class,
Under the articles of confederation, “congress did not have the power to tax citizens of the United States” (Corbett, etal, 2014), the states levied their taxes. The purpose of this was to avoid the “taxation without representation” that the colonies had just gone through with Great Britain. However, this became a problem that would result in financial instability during and after the revolutionary war when states would not voluntarily give the funding to the federal government.
A similar problem, the federal government could not raise its own army but had to request help from states soldiers. If a war on the entire country had occurred, it would have caused chaos and a defeat if any state chose to not help. This did become a problem though during Shay’s rebellion, when farmers in Massachusetts rebelled against the political and economic issues they had been experiencing with no help from the state (National Archives and Records Administration, 2023). Since the federal government had no army and it was left to each state to handle their affairs, an internal battle began. This would cause a national fear because other states were experiencing similar problems, and it was only a matter of time before more rebellions would begin.
The ratification process in 1787 was originally to amend the articles of confederation but once realizing the problems of the articles, a new draft was proposed to fix the government and create a stronger national government that would help unite and balance the states. Since 9 out of the 13 states had to approve the constitution plan, the ratification process led to a debate to help sway citizens minds to accept or deny the new constitution. This would end in a very close vote to approve the constitution. Anti-federalists wanted stronger individual state power like what the articles of confederation had while federalists believed a strong national government was necessary (Ramos,2023). The differences in opinion on how a government should function is what lead to the first 2 political parties. Anti-federalists feared for a corrupt government and another setup like what Great Britain had since no bill of rights was listed in the draft. Federalists fought that the states were suffering currently because of too much power in the states individually with no way to unite the country. James Madison and Alexander Hamilton were two of the most famous federalists, and even published the federalists’ papers. Samuel Adams and Richard Henry Lee were two famous anti-federalists at the convention.
In my opinion, Alexander Hamilton was one of the most influential figures in the ratification of the articles of confederation. He was the original person to arrange for a ratification and request George Washington to lead the men in helping the federal government. Once everyone arrived, it quickly became a new agenda of creating a new framework for a national government (Corbett, etal, 2014). This may have never occurred this way if Hamilton had not initiated the ratification when he did.
References
Corbett, S., Vickery, P., Waskiewicz, S., Pfannestiel, T., Lund, J., & Janssen, J. (2014) United
States History. OpenStax. https://openstax.org/books/us-history/pages/1-introductionLinks to an external site.
National Archives and Records Administration. (2023). Articles of Confederation (1777). National Archives and Records Administration. https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/articles-of-confederationLinks to an external site.
Ramos, M. (2023, September 20). Anti-federalists. The Free Speech Center.
https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/anti-federalists/Links to an external site.
