today we're looking at the articles of confederation
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with this video the articles of confederation was the first constitution of the united states
before the constitution that we have today which by the way is the oldest constitution
currently in use in the world which is a testament to the writing of the document itself
but before the current constitution was written in 1787 the united states of america
operated under the articles of confederation the articles of confederation were written in 1777
shortly after america had declared independence in 1776 but the articles were not ratified or
improved approved until 1781. a big reason it took so long to approve the articles was that you have
to remember up until that point the colonies had basically operated as their own little independent
states or independent countries i guess you would say and they were fearful of giving up power to a
central government which is what the articles of confederation were setting up and you also have to
consider that the united states was fighting a war to get out from under the control of a king which
is about is is about as centralized to government as you can have but as far as the document itself
there were actually six different drafts of the articles of confederation with the earliest draft
being written by benjamin franklin back in 1775. now if you recall this was not the first time
franklin had proposed a central government for the colonies back in 1754 just as the french
and indian war was getting underway benjamin franklin had proposed his albany plan of union
to create a central government for the colonies but it was rejected and franklin ended up moving
to london for the next 20 years because he was so upset about it being rejected but here again
franklin's draft of the articles didn't even really get any serious consideration from the
continental congress it's actually john dickinson of pennsylvania that writes four different drafts
and his final draft is accepted as the foundation for the new government to be formed and before
i get into the articles themselves i just want to say i don't want to simply bash the
articles because you'll find out there were some serious problems with the articles but there were
some significant accomplishments that the nation achieved while under the articles of confederation
for one the united states was successful in fighting a war with britain and achieving full
independence however the articles did create many obstacles during the war itself also we have the
northwest ordinance which organized areas such as illinois ohio indiana michigan and wisconsin into
territories and set them on a path to eventually becoming states then lastly actually we get
the title the united states of america from the articles of confederation now how did the articles
organize the states and what powers did the federal government have well as far as the states
it was very vague as to the relationship between the states actually what it said was the states
had a firm league of friendship so again not very precise in their definition of state relationships
as far as powers given to the federal government the federal government could make treaties and
alliances with other nations of course this will come in handy at the end of the american
revolution as the u.s and britain are negotiating and signing the treaty of paris to end the war
also the federal government could maintain an armed forces which again is another power crucial
to conducting a war then lastly the articles gave the federal government the authority to coin or
print money but one thing to keep in mind even though the federal government had these powers
the articles set up what is known as a federal system or a system where power is shared between
the states and the federal government under the articles most of the power went to the individual
states again because they were fearful of a central government that was too powerful so that's
what the government could do but honestly history is focused more on what the government could not
do under the article's confederation the biggest weakness of the article's confederation was the
fact that the federal government could not raise taxes now i i don't mean that congress couldn't
adjust tax rates up or down i mean they simply didn't have any method of collecting money to
support the government and most importantly they couldn't raise funds to support the continental
army during the war they had to basically politely ask states to give funds to support the government
furthermore the government could not regulate or control foreign trade or require states to follow
laws passed by the federal government another huge problem with the articles was if they
wanted to amend it or change the rules in the articles they had to get unanimous support
so basically all the states had to agree and that's nearly impossible to accomplish
so the articles could not really be changed also there was only one branch of government under the
article's confederation the legislative branch there was no executive or judicial branch meaning
there was no method of checks and balances or each branch keeping tabs on what the other
part of the government was doing all of these weaknesses began to culminate in the mid 1780s
as the country began to realize they needed a new constitution especially after this big event known
as shae's rebellion which i'll cover in another video they really begin to realize they need
a new constitution so with that hopefully you learned something and thanks for watching you