From 1781 to 1789 the United States was governed under the Articles of Confederation. In this time period, the newly formed country was the weakest it had ever been due to the lack of effectiveness that the Articles had. At first they seemed ideal for running the country but it was later noticed that the Articles contained too many weaknesses in key places to actually benefit the country. .
Economically, the articles were a disaster. This is most evident in document B, which best shows how the articles ineffectiveness affected the United States's economy. This was due to the inability to regulate interstate commerce, which led to disputes between states and inability to regulate trade with foreign nations to protect American business. Another way that the Articles affected the American economy was due to the fact that it did not allow the government to levy or collect taxes, which made congress only able to raise money by borrowing or asking states for money. Usually, the states had no reason to agree with these requests for money even when congress desperately needed the money to build up a military to protect the nation. This is made most evident in document C, which is a letter to George Washington stating the need for all soldiers to receive their pay even though the country had no many to pay them with.
Another weakness of the Articles of Confederation were that there was no way for it to enforce national laws due to a lack of a national court system. This made it so that each individual state court could interpret national laws any which way that they wanted to . this made it extremely difficult to get each state to abide by what was intended in the laws. This also made it almost impossible to enforce treaties that were made with the British. This is shown in document D, where John Jay can only ask the US minister to Great Britain to respectfully ask for all British troops to clear out of the American nation.
