The Articles Of Confederation Was The First National...

Perhaps the greatest service rendered by the Articles of Confederation was the impetus its shortcomings gave to those who favored a strong central government. The first national government of the United States is the Articles of Confederation. The Articles of Confederation was approved by the Continental Congress in 1777, it was adopted and written by John Dickinson. However, there was a delay in ratifying the articles by the states. It all came down to property out West. States like Virginia and Massachusetts had claimed numerous land stretching from the East Coast all the way to Pacific Ocean as a part of their colonial charters. States like Maryland and Pennsylvania, who did not have these land claims did not agree on ratifying this†¦show more content†¦This is what led them to not create an Executive Branch. In fact, there is no judicial national court system either instead it is a one branch government known as a legislative branch. They had a unicameral congress, a one house congress. Also, every state irregardless of size had one vote per state. Meaning the biggest state being Virginia and one of the smaller states like Rhode Island all had one vote. To change the Articles of Confederation required unanimous consent which meant every state had to agree to make any changes to it and did pass a law, it required a super majority. Nine out of thirteen states needed to agree in order to go into effect which became extremely difficult to accomplish. All in all, the articles was politically so weak in term of not being a powerful central government was due to â€Å"Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence.† These states were sovereign, they were eligible to act on their own. This was a confederation rather than a strong union. The idea of Federalism is that power is shared between a federal and state governments. Under the Articles of Confederation, there was a federal government but the federal government was so powerless when compared to the power of the states. Politically, the articles were weak because of the experience with England. They intentionally created this weak government. What created difficulty in the 1780s was the economic weaknesses. They had no desire to hand over