What Were the Articles of Confederation? | History

In the US, we love our constitution.

But it wasn't always this way.

Before the Constitution and government we have today,

we had a sort of prototype constitution called the Articles of Confederation,

which created a nation of independent states

only loosely linked together by a single Congress.

The Founding Fathers intentionally designed a nation with a very weak central government.

There was no judicial branch,

no executive branch,

so there was no president.

Which, when you think about it,

it makes a lot of sense.

The colonists had just been through a really bad breakup with the British king, and

they're not about to get back together with a government who looked just like their ex.

We've all made that mistake before.

You go and date a girl

like the last girl you dated,

you're going to get hurt. Don't do this to yourself!

The Congress, which was just a single chamber with a delegate from every state,

did have some power,

like the authority to make treaties and alliances,

maintain an army, and coin money.

But they couldn't levy the taxes to pay for those things.

In fact, under the Articles of Confederation,

paying federal taxes was voluntary for the states, who of course were like,

"No thanks, we're good."

The US had borrowed money from European investors and

nations to pay for the Revolutionary War,

but with no power to tax,

the United States couldn't pay back any of those debts,

creating a huge economic disaster by 1787.

With no funds and limited power,

the central government couldn't do much to protect peace at home.

This became abundantly clear during Shays's Rebellion in 1786,

when farmers in Massachusetts violently protested against the state's high taxes.

So if the Articles of Confederation weren't working,

why didn't they just make changes to it?

Well, it was practically impossible.

Amendments to the Articles needed unanimous consent, and

the delegates from the thirteen states had more opinions than a YouTube comment section.

By the way, you should comment on this video right now,

say something nice about it.

This weak Congress and a broke,

ineffective federal government eventually

proved to be too much of a burden on the United States.

Because when thirteen different state governments held all the power,

nothing was getting accomplished.

The Founding Fathers found this out the hard way.

They went back to the drawing board,

drafting a new and improved Constitution,

which is still the law of our land today.