On November 15, 1777, the Continental Congress, after painstaking debate, passed the Articles of Confederation of the United States of America.

According to Document D, the British Ministry had a firm restriction on America’s trade during the time of the Articles of Confederation.  A strong, effective government would not have allowed a small, weaker country than they controlling their business.  The other problem with the government at the time which involved trade is the following: From the years 1770 to 1792, the population of America nearly doubled.  For the economy to be considered successful, the market value of United States exports to Great Britain should have almost doubled too.  Instead, they went up by less than forty percent (Doc. B).  This indicates that the nation was not doing very well economically under the Articles of Confederation because the income wasn’t proportionate to the number of people.

The Articles of Confederation had another major fault: many of the things which were in them violated the original state constitutions (Doc. A).  A government cannot possibly hope to please its people when it defies the original ideals of those people.   If a government does this, it is not pleasing its people by any means, and therefore is definitely not proving itself to be effective.  Also, in Document C by Joseph Jones, it says the army was not content during this time.  The government was not doing a good job of paying its soldiers or complying with any of their other needs.  The country was being protected by a discontented force.  Another main concern of an effective government is to protect its land and people, neither of which were being protected very well with an army in such distress.

Three of the things which are essential to make any government effective are the authority to set up tariffs when necessary, to regulate commerce, and to levy taxes.  Under the Articles of Confederation, the government lacked all of these powers.  The most important of these is the capability to levy taxes.  Without the ability to levy taxes, Congress was unable to pay off debt that had been in place since before the war (Doc. D by John Jay).   The government was worried about paying off that debt, and so was not so concerned about the condition of the people.

        Shay’s Rebellion is another reason for concern.  The fact that one man, with a few followers, could make John Jay more “uneasy and apprehensive” than during the war (Doc. G) is enough, by itself, to make one question the effectiveness of the government.   John Jay says himself that through the Articles, they are doing wrong, and that people are beginning to loose confidence in their rulers.  If a government’s people question the sovereigns, they will not respect or follow that government and, in doing so, they unknowingly label the government as ineffective.

        The last, and perhaps most important, issue which proves that the Articles of Confederation did not provide the United States with an effective government is the simple fact that fairly soon after the Articles came into operation, they were shot down and immediately replaced by the Constitution.  The Constitution has effectively headed a government since then.

        The effectiveness of a government is a very important matter. Without an effective government, anarchy will prevail, which is good for no one.  The Articles of Confederation were, without a doubt, written with only the best of intentions to form a new empire.  However, the need for a strong form of central government prevailed, and the inadequacy of the Articles proved themselves to be ineffective.