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Mr. Gillard
AP US History
4 October 2006
The Articles of Confederation
Before the United States Constitution was created and ratified, a document called the Art
icles of Confederation existed to provide the new country with an outline of laws, but it never ac
tually worked how anyone intended for it to. It was a cause of major contradiction and confusion
in the long run, which took away from the effectiveness of the documents.
Article II of the Articles of Confederation states that every state will retain its sover
eignty, essentially making it a separate country. That gave the states the ability to create alliances
with other states and countries and even declare war on other states. The country was supposed to
be coming together as a unified nation, but Article II stated that the states were they’re own sep
arate, individual ‘country’.
In Article VI, the Articles of Confederation contradicted itself. In Article II, it stated that
any state could make treaties and declare war on whomever they so desired, but in Article VI, it
is stated that two or more states may not enter into an alliance without the consent of the United
States Government. The two articles could easily confuse states, when they were supposed to be
sovereign nations in amongst the country.
The Articles of Confederation also gave power solely to Congress, to do whatever they
pleased, but the United States of America was supposed to be a government ruled by the people.
The people should have had more power than Congress to vote laws and war, but Congress had
the power to control peace treaties and declarations of war. Articles II and VI stated that states
could declare war on whom they pleased. Yet another case of contradiction and confusion.
At the time of the writing of the Articles of Confederation, Canada was still considered a
colony. In the Articles of Confederation, it was stated that Canada was to receive all of the bene
fits of the documents, but it was only Canada that would receive the special treatment. That was a
cause of jealousy for other colonies that may have wanted the same treatment.
Though the writer’s of the Articles of Confederation thought that they were doing the
new country a favor, it turned out that it was for the better that the documents only last from 1781
to 1789 before it was scrapped and a new document was written up. If they hadn’t been replaced,
the country would be quite different from what it is today.