Articles of Confederation

            The Articles of Confederation were America's first Constitution. However, it did not fulfil the purpose of setting up a central government for the United States, for there were too many weaknesses to it. The United States was made up of thirteen States which could not do everything by themselves. For example, the country needed a single army in order to win the Revolutionary War against Britain and not thirteen small ones for each one of the States. For these reasons and others as well, the States decided to unite the States into a confederation. .
             After the power struggle with Great Britain over unfair taxes and laws, the thirteen States were reluctant to give Congress the power to enforce those same things. Therefore, Congress did not have a lot of power and never had much money since it could not demand that the States loan it any. The country was facing severe debt after the revolution and could not pay it all back for years. Congress also had no power to regulate trade, making citizens susceptible to bad bargaining and heavy taxation from the States. .
             Because of the abuses of the British monarch and Parliament, Americans feared too much governmental authority. As a result, the Articles of Confederation did not set up an executive power (i.e.: president, prime minister, etc). America had no national court system (no judiciary power), only a one-house legislature with one vote for each state. Also, there was little or no sense of national unity, as most Americans still owned first loyalties to home states. .
             After ten years of using this document, Americans finally found the many weaknesses and gathered delegates in Philadelphia to write up the Constitution.