History and anyone who has looked at the short period between the end the revolution and the ratification have found that there was chaos. The Articles of Confederation are responsible for this chaos. The Articles of Confederation resembled the United States of America’s legal book. However, the articles were weak. The constitution of the United States was an ideal entity to replace them. The Articles of Confederation must be replaced due to their inability or inability of taxing, controlling trade, and disunity in their decision making process.
The Articles of Confederation were unable to regulate the interstate and international trade. This was the biggest weakness. A country’s survival depends on its trade. A country’s survival depends on its ability to control trade. This is something that the Articles of Confederation cannot do. How could this country survive? The federal government can ban all items coming from the United Kingdom. However, the states, typically Rhode Island, in New England could reject the proposal and prohibit the importation of any articles. Interstate trade was also affected by this. You could be taxed if you enter a state by crossing the Potomac River and Delaware Rivers. This terrible system saw states competing for dominance and trying to escape debt by taxing and imposing tariffs on their neighbors. The Articles of Confederation couldn’t control the trade flows within and between the countries. This made them an unsound system that had to change. Articles of Confederation did not allow for taxation of the states or people. They were limited to asking for donations. About twenty-five% of their requests weren’t fulfilled which means they only received twenty-five% of what they required. They couldn’t continue to live in such a system. We were heavily indebted to France, and other countries. We were only able to pay about 25% of the amount we needed. This was a terrible situation. As we were getting deeper and deeper into debt, France became angry and blocked our West Indies ports from us. This further crippled our economy. The Articles of Confederation’s inability tax the nation was evident and only made it worse.
Another reason the Articles of Confederation had to be repealed was their decision-making. The first was the way that Congress was established. Each state was allowed one vote. This would work if all the states were equal in size. But they aren’t. Virginia’s six hundred-eighty thousand residents had the same power as Rhode Island, which had sixty-eight million. This is unfair to all of those people. New York and Virginia each had the same power level as Delaware and Rhode Island. To create or amend a law, Congress had to reach an agreement. All 13 states needed to sign the agreement. You can see, there was no agreement. It was possible for twelve states to agree on one thing, but Rhode Island, which is usually the case, could disagree with the rest and it would not be adopted. Rhode Island would never accept the other states. They were wild, and they did what they wanted. Nothing was done at the Congress of the United States. The Articles of Confederation were not able to reach a decision due the bad decision-making rules.
Due to their inability and inability to tax trade, as well as their disunity during decision-making, the Articles of Confederation were needed to be repealed. Articles of Confederation were bad because they couldn’t control trade within and outside the country. The Articles of Confederation’s inability tax the nation made it worse. The Articles of Confederation are a terrible system, and they must be removed immediately.
