Describe the Strengths and Weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation.
The Articles of Confederation was one of the first official documents of the United States. However after a few short years the Articles were replaced by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The Articles were a stepping stone which led to the Constitution however the Articles contained more weaknesses than strengths which forced the colonists to get rid of them and create a new document.
The strengths of the Articles were few. Some of the goals it managed to accomplish was to bring the states together and establish a strong legislature. The people were very pleased with the legislature as it gave them a voice in the government. Also under the Articles of Confederation the colonists set up the Land Ordinance of 1785 and the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 which were plans for making new states as well as paying off the national debt. The Land Ordinance was mostly concerned about western lands known as the "old northwest". The plan was to split up the land, survey it, then put it up for sale. The money made off of these lands would then go to pay off the national debt. The Northwest Ordinance dealt more with the governing of these new territories. It split the sections up and reserved certain sections for setting up public schools, when a territory had 60,000 or more inhabitants it could be submitted to congress as a state. However great these changes were though, the Articles of Confederation was a weak document which eventually lead to a convention to revise the Articles.
Due to the many weaknesses of the Articles the convention that was held to revise the articles ended up throwing away the Articles of Confederation and starting all over again. A weak congress was one of these weaknesses. The colonists were still wary of a strong central government due to their dealings with England so they decided to purposely make the congress weak.