No executive or judicial branches were provided for. Congress was charged with responsibility for conducting foreign relations, declaring war and peace, maintaining the Army and the Navy, settling boundary disputes, establishing and maintaining a postal service, and various lesser functions. Some of these responsibilities were shared with the States, and in one way or another Congress was dependent upon the cooperation of the States for carrying them out (Squire et al. 22).
The Symptoms of a Weak Constitution.
There were four problems that existed under the Articles of Confederation which made it impossible for Congress to execute its constitutional duties. These were identified in "The Federalist", the political essays in which Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay argued in the case for the U.S. Constitution of 1787 (48). The first weakness was that Congress could only dictate legislature for states, not individuals; because of this it could not enforce legislation. In addition, Congress had no power to tax. Instead, it had to assess its expenses and divide those amongst the states on the basis of the value of the land. States were then expected to tax their own citizens to raise the money for these expenses and turn the proceeds over to Congress. They could not be forced to do so, and they rarely met their obligations. Third, Congress lacked the power to control commerce. Without this power foreign relations were mostly unnecessary, since most treaties except those of peace were concerned with trade. The fourth weakness ensured the demise of the Confederation by making it too difficult to correct the first three (Story 49-50). .
Congress soon found itself facing a mounting national debt that it was unable to pay on its own and unable to force the states to assume. Since change was virtually impossible, because of the requirements for a unanimous amendment process, the Articles remained unchanged and hardships continued to mount for many Americans.