Articles of Confederation

The Articles of Confederation were adopted to, for the first time ever, bind all of the thirteen colonies into thirteen states. It united the colonies as one country for the first time ever. It gave the colonies one voice on the issue of foreign affairs, but did very little outside of that. In that way, it was a very ineffective doctrine. It laid out plans for a weak congress, but no other branches of government, let alone checks and balances. The biggest issues occurred in trade, where the voice was anything but united. All the colonies collected their own taxes set their own tariffs, and often used their own money. Because of this, it was not a very effective document for creating a new nation, however it was a first step which was very important. Also, it is important to remember that it would have been just short of impossible to come up with a document as revolutionary as the constitution. If the Articles were more stable than they were, yet still not as much as the constitution, the nation may have held onto these weak articles, making the nation weak itself and dividing its voice over the state. Instead, the complete and total inefficiency of the Articles spurred it to be scraped completely and to start from scratch, making something with a stronger central government, the constitution.