American Democracy in Context. Joseph A. PikaЧитать онлайн книгу.
The Structure and Power of Government Under the Articles of Confederation
The Articles of Confederation were designed to protect the power and autonomy of the states coming together in this confederation. The national government consisted solely of a weak unicameral (one-house) legislature; there was no executive or judicial branch. It had only those powers expressly delegated to it by the states, such as appointing army officers, waging war, controlling the post office, and negotiating with Indian tribes. Any powers not specifically given to the national government by the Articles of Confederation were reserved to the states.
Delegates to the Confederation Congress were appointed by state legislatures. To ensure equality among the states, each state—regardless of its size or the number of delegates it sent—had a single vote in Congress (as had been the practice in the First and Second Continental Congresses). A state cast its vote in accordance with the votes of the majority of its delegates; if a state could not achieve a majority among its delegates on a particular vote, it would abstain from voting.23 Passage of legislation required at least nine of the thirteen votes, and amendment of the Articles of Confederation required a unanimous vote.
Weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation
When drafting the Articles of Confederation, the delegates to the second Continental Congress focused more on the potential threats posed by a national government than on the benefits such a government might provide. After all, their bitter experience with Great Britain was fresh on their minds. Therefore, they were more concerned with limiting government than empowering it.24 Moreover, people still thought of themselves as citizens of their particular state: They were Virginians or New Yorkers rather than Americans. Worse, states fundamentally mistrusted each other. They also had widely divergent economic interests and often saw each other as competitors. These factors led to the creation of a governing document with fundamental weaknesses.
The most obvious weakness of the Articles was that the national government had too little power. For example, Congress had no power to tax. This severely limited the ability of the national government to raise money to pay for debts incurred during the Revolutionary War. Congress requested money from the states, but payment was voluntary and compliance was poor.25 To modern eyes, not giving Congress the power to tax seems strange, but if you remember that the American Revolution was a revolt against taxation by a distant government, then withholding of this power from the unfamiliar and distant national government (as opposed to familiar and near state governments) becomes more understandable.26
Congress also lacked the power to regulate commerce among the states. As a result, states jostled for economic advantage, routinely using protective tariffs (taxes imposed on imported goods) against one another as well as against foreign nations. Trade was further hindered by the fact that the new nation had no common currency. Although the new national government could, and did, print money to pay war debts, each state also produced its own currency. Since some states printed more money than others, currency from different states had different values, complicating trade and hurting the economy.
Rhode Island’s $3 bill came to be worth no more than the paper it was printed on.
Sarin Images / GRANGER — All rights reserved.
Significantly, Congress did not even have a permanent home. It originally sat in Philadelphia, but the delegates fled to Princeton, New Jersey, in June 1783 when a mutinous group of hundreds of Revolutionary War veterans mobbed Independence Hall, where the Confederation Congress was then meeting, to demand pay for their war service. After a little more than four months in Princeton, the Confederation Congress then moved to Annapolis, Maryland, before proceeding to Trenton, New Jersey, in 1784, and finally to New York City in 1785. Historian David O. Stewart has noted that Congress’s homelessness was a potent symbol of its frailty, adding, “Vagabondage is not the hallmark of a great government.”27
Another notable weakness was the fact that there was no separation of powers at the national level: All power, such as it was, lay in the legislature. The lack of a federal judiciary compounded the problems associated with trade wars among the states. For example, some states passed legislation cancelling their debts to other states. With no federal judiciary to turn to, those affected by such legislation sometimes had no legal recourse. Likewise, the lack of a federal judiciary made it difficult to resolve boundary disputes among the states. The lack of an executive branch meant that the national government had no real ability to execute its laws. Early attempts to administer laws through ad hoc committees, councils, and conventions were unsuccessful.
In short, the new national government had no power to lead, and often did not even have enough power to do what little it was supposed to. The national government seemed to be little more than a “rope of sand” holding the confederation together.28 The states did not help the situation. They encroached on the authority of the national government by raising their own militaries, ignoring the nation’s treaties with foreign powers, and waging war with Native Americans. Sometimes states did not even bother to send delegates to Congress, making it difficult to muster the necessary quorum for passing legislation.29
Shays’ Rebellion
By the mid-1780s, the new nation was in the midst of an economic depression. Farmers, in particular, had gone into debt to rebuild their farms after the Revolutionary War, in which many of them had served as soldiers. The combination of a bad growing season, high interest rates, and high state taxes to pay off the war debt made it impossible for many farmers to pay their bills. Foreclosures (losing one’s property due to failure to pay a loan) skyrocketed, and imprisonment for debt was common. In Massachusetts, desperate farmers turned to the state for help. When help did not come, the farmers—led by Daniel Shays, who had been a captain in the Continental Army—banded together and tried, by force, to shut down the courthouses where foreclosures were issued. This armed rebellion by more than 2,000 farmers, which began in August 1786 and continued into 1787, came to be known as Shays’ Rebellion.
Massachusetts appealed to the national government for help in restoring order. Congress requisitioned states for money to fund a national militia to quell the rebellion, but only Virginia complied. Without money, Congress was powerless to act. Massachusetts did not have enough money in its own state treasury to fund a state militia, and therefore had to rely on money from private donors. The whole event was unsettling, and it proved to be an important turning point. By highlighting the impotence of the national government, Shays’ Rebellion galvanized the nation. Those who had long feared that the Articles of Confederation were deficient now had a dramatic example of Congress’s inability to maintain order and protect the safety of the people.
Starting Over: The Constitutional Convention
Before Shays’ Rebellion, Virginia had already called for a convention to discuss a uniform regulation of commerce to remedy one of the primary defects of the Articles of Confederation. Only five states sent delegates to the convention, which convened in Annapolis, Maryland, in the fall of 1786. One of the delegates was Alexander Hamilton, who had previously served in the Confederation Congress; frustrated by the weakness of the national government, he had resigned in 1783. Long opposed to the Articles of Confederation, Hamilton now drafted a resolution that called on Congress to authorize a convention to examine the need either to amend the Articles of Confederation or to replace them altogether. Shays’ Rebellion provided the impetus for the Annapolis Convention to support Hamilton’s resolution. Congress now felt pressure to act. On February 21, 1787, it passed a resolution to convene a Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation.
Shays’ Rebellion An armed rebellion by farmers in Massachusetts who, facing foreclosure, tried using force to shut down courthouses where the foreclosures were issued. The national