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 that I think would hinder the government's effectiveness is the inability to get taxes from its people, which would hinder the overall spending ability of the country, making it so each state would have to pay for their own needs. This could cause problems if the nation as a whole needs to pay for something, or if they need to fund a military. I think the writers of the Articles of Confederation put this flaw into the articles in order to avoid oppression, since Britain had oppressed the colonists through taxes.
ReplyDeleteI agree. A government can't function properly without money so it is a problem that they couldn't tax the people.
DeleteI agree and I wrote a similar argument. America was also in deep debt after the war and how no way to money to repay it.
DeleteAgreed, if a government can't collect taxes during wartime, etc, they are surely have a big chance to lose the war
DeleteI agree. Without funding a government can't do the things necessary to keep the country safe.
DeleteYes, among other things the inability to tax people made the nation basically useless.
DeleteI agree a lot. The inability to tax people can damage a country a lot in the long run, because it will go into debt. America was already in debt because of the war, and they had no way to get out of this debt.
DeleteOne flaw in the Articles of Confederation was that the government didn't have any centralized leadership, because it had no executive branch, only legislative. They did this because they believed that any centralized leadership looked too much like a King. Their priority was not to become like Britain and oppress people with a King.
ReplyDeleteI agree but I also wonder if there were benefits to not having centralized leadership (beyond not being oppressed).
DeleteI agree that the writers of the Articles of Confederation probably thought negatively of a centralized government, since that had led to their oppression.
DeleteI agree, they definitely lacked a centralized government, but like Kathleen said, I wonder if there were any benefits they sacrificed or lost when they made that big change.
DeleteAgreed. They were so focused on avoiding oppression that having a centralized government was probably out of the question. I haven't thought of the question Kathleen brought up, so that makes me quite curious as well.
DeleteOne flaw or shortcoming in the Articles of Confederation that kept the government from being efficient was the fact that the articles did not allow Congress to levy taxes, but relied on the states to bring in money. However, often the states did not turn over any more. If the national government has no funding it cannot work at all never the less efficiently. Not only that, but America was deeply in debt after the war and had no way to pay back that money without some type of tax.
ReplyDeleteI agree that it is important to be able to tax so they have money and not rely on the goodwill of the states.
DeleteI made the same argument in my own response, so I agree.
DeleteAgreed, a government can't function without taxing, and it may have some effects.
DeleteAgreed. They needed to be able to have tax their citizens more, but their more state-focused government didn't guarantee they could.
DeleteI agree, even though the people may cause a fuss over getting taxed, it is crucial for the government to do so in order to function.
DeleteI say that a main point that is a flatw that kept the government from being efficient was the lack of checks and balances, what I mean by this is that, there was not no executive Branch or Judicial, only the Legislative, We all Know that they have to keep each other in check, having only one branch would mean the balance would be tipped over.
ReplyDeleteI agree. Without the other branches to keep each other in check, tyranny could easily happen.
DeleteThis is true! On the last blogger post many of us reiterated the importance of minimizing corruption in government. Without a system like checks and balances, the government will quickly become corrupt, which is what Americans tried so hard to avoid.
DeleteA flaw in the Articles of Confederation was that Congress did not have the power to tax the states but Congress relied on money from the states. This is a problem because after the Revolutionary War, America was in millions of dollars of debt and without taxes America wouldn't be able to pay off their debt.
ReplyDeleteI agree, war debts are never a good thing to have, and the states set themselves up for a small crisis by not figuring out a concrete way to raise the money needed to alleviate their debts to France.
DeleteA flaw was that much of their government was state-focused in order to be as unlike a monarchy as possible, and so they did lacked a centralized government. They focused more on being different from England than they did having a good, responsible, efficent government.
ReplyDeleteI agree, as lacking a centralized government only complicates future matters as everyone is there own state, so it might seem as its not their problem.
DeleteI agree, and the initial drive to have as little centralized power as possible has come around to hurt people today, like we saw in Texas when their power grid went out a few weeks ago. They were essentially on their own because they strived to be as independent as possible.
DeleteI agree, the lack of a centralized government and the inability to levy taxes as a country are both policies that seem a direct attempt to reassure the public that they would be different from Britain
DeleteA main flaw of the Articles of Confederation was that they were unable to gather up an army in the case of war. This is a major issue, because this made the United states virtually unable to protect itself in the case of emergency. This is not an effective government, and it shows that American government urgently needed to change.
ReplyDeleteThis is actually something I wasn't aware of
DeleteI agree with this idea, there has to be a form of protection to make sure the government stays intact.
DeleteI agree. This and several other factors of the AoC made the US vulnerable.
DeleteI like this, yes there was a Continental Army, but after the war, what is there going to be, no army?
DeleteA flaw in the Articles of Confederation was a general lack of power in the national government itself, resulting in the government basically being no more than an agreement between the states. This was most likely included in order to prevent a central government with too much power, much like England and their king.
ReplyDeleteI agree, as with no central government, the states aren't truly united
DeleteYes, I hadn't read this answer, but I agree with no unification, it was just states that only had one cause: break away from imperial rule.
DeleteI agree, while it may seem beneficial because they're trying to not be like Britain, what they're really doing is not acting like a united nation
DeleteA flaw in the Articles of Confederation that kept the government from being efficient was its policy of not being able to levy taxes directly on the people, especially the troops as they had to make a formal request which was often rejected. This is a problem as the government would need funds to keep things running. I believe they included this shortcoming as a way to avoid replicating the British monarchy and Parliament, as they had taxed Americans as a whole before without their permission.
ReplyDeleteI agree that no taxation was a problem, and how the reason they didn't want to do it was because they wanted to avoid what Britain did.
DeleteI agree—the ability to levy taxes on the states helps a nation run as a whole and when states decide how much money they want to contribute there is an imbalance of money contribution.
DeleteIt was definitely a hard decision, because a lot of what fueled the revolution was the people's protests against taxes, so levying national taxes was a slippery slope.
DeleteI think the major flaw that the Articles of Confederation included was that the government weren't able to levy taxes on people. Therefore they weren't able to receive any type of funding, so they had to resort to something else for money. They must've included this flaw because of how the colonies reacted to all the taxation the British placed on them. Their priority was to avoid what the British had done, and by excluding taxation, they made sure the same type of backlash wouldn't be recreated.
ReplyDeleteI agree. the US at the time was also in debt, and leaving taxes to the individual states was an unpredictable source of revenue.
DeleteI agree without funding they wouldn't be able to get much done as they had plenty of debt left from the war.
DeleteI agree, little taxation led them to be unable to pay off the taxes that they had to get rid of.
DeleteI agree, it is very possible that the reaction the colonists had to the British tax caused the government to be less harsh in regards to taxation.
DeleteA flaw in the Articles of Confederation was the lack of central leadership. There was a lack of a chief executive/presidential figure because they were so determined to not repeat what the British had, which was a monarch. They thought that the government would become oppressive if there was any sort of executive in place.
ReplyDeleteThat's a good point!
DeleteThis is an excellent point- even in the pre-American-government revolution, they had George Washington as the figurehead for America, which wasn't just unifying, but also good for morale.
DeleteOne of the biggest weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation was the lack of any sort of executive branch of the government. They were thinking in the right direction when they decided to limit executive power, but it is useful for the strength and stability of a nation to have a part of government whose job it is to implement and enforce laws, as well as having a leader for the nation to rally behind.
ReplyDeleteI agree that they needed an executive branch.
DeleteI agree—they were trying to create a government that was very different from England’s but still needed an executive branch to run their nation successfully.
DeleteOne major flaw of the Articles of Confederation was that the national government had no power of taxation. Congress would've struggled to pay off America's foreign debts and pay for other tasks, and make establishing a national budget not possible. The unpredictability of leaving taxes to the states kept the government form being efficient in this way.
ReplyDeleteI agree! The lack of taxes made them seem weaker.
DeleteI agree without the ability to tax they wouldn't be able to prosper as a government.
DeleteI agree, there was no way for them to pay of debt without collecting taxes.
DeleteThe Articles of Confederation were rather looking for less oppression than actual logic, and one of these flaws was no central authority. The colonies might have had a united cause, but they weren't actually united, and so it felt like when the war was over, the states would just become independent countries, because the Articles failed to provide unity.
ReplyDeleteI agree it wasn't the United States of American it was more like 13 different countries.
DeleteOne flaw in thew Articles of Confederation was that they did not collect taxes from states but instead relied on them do so at will. This makes the government look weaker and obviously gives a chance to the states to take an upper hand.
ReplyDeleteI agree, this made it seem illegitimate.
DeleteI agree, this gives more power to the states and will/has most likely caused some conflict between states and government.
DeleteA flaw that the Articles of Confederation had was that they did not have the power to levy taxes and because of this they put pressure on the states to bring in some sort of income to pay off national debts. This was a flaw because without actually taxing people it made it harder to pay off debt.
ReplyDeleteOne flaw in the Articles of Confederation was that they didn't get to levy taxes. Without this key power, the government had no see of legitimacy, or cohesion. The separated nature of the confederation without an executive branch or overall powers led to it's weakness.
ReplyDeleteI believe that one of the biggest flaws in the Articles of Confederation is that it did not allow the country to levy taxes. This made it much more difficult to pay off state debt and it made the country feel less united
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ReplyDeleteOne of the biggest flaws of the Articles of Confederation is that they did not have the power to tax the people. This caused them to be inefficient as it was harder for them to pay off debts from the Revolutionary War.
ReplyDeleteOne major flow of the Articles of Confederation were the lack of checks and balances. Checks and balances are necessary in a democratic government and help prevent corruption and an overall imbalance of power. A lack of checks and balances may result in a government similar to England’s.
ReplyDeleteThe Articles of Confederation gave most (almost all) of the power to state governments, which meant that the individual states were in charge of collecting taxes and choosing how much they wanted to contribute to the federal government. This meant that there was uneven contribution from different states, and that the government couldn't pay off debts or fund other necessities.
ReplyDeleteIt also just created a very unbalanced country as because of the different laws and taxes some places would be more desirable to live in than others. It would affect prices, living conditions, and probably even crime rates.
DeleteLike many others in this class, I believe a significant flaw was the fact the the Articles of Confederation did not collect taxes from states directly, but relied on each individual state to provide the right amount of money. The possible reasoning for this risky decision may be an attempt to give the individual states more power, but made it easy for the states to take advantage of this policy.
ReplyDeleteI agree, they gave the states way too much power and didn't give enough authority to the leader or the government itself.
DeleteOne flaw was that the Articles of Confederation lacked was the ability to tax, hence they weren't getting any money to pay off the debt from the war. I think they did this because they didn't like being taxed from how England did and they focused more on to not have a government not like Britain not on having an actual working government.
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree. They also were of course very much against a federal government and preferred to be self governed, so paying federal taxes seemed pointless to them.
DeleteA flaw that the Articles of Confederation had was that they lacked a system of checks and balances. This made corruption a high possibility as only one branch of government was prevalent under the system. This was done to allow the states to have individual power instead of one federal government.
ReplyDelete