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The Articles of Confederation

Added Aug 22, 2017 •

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Halloween refer to are two for two systems of Florence 14th  all right Secretary of State Saturday for sales with everything outside of America welcome back to mr. Ray Civics EOC Academy last time we learn about the Declaration of Independence which was released in 1770 well fighting it already broken out in what would be called the Revolutionary War and this would drag on until 1783 the 13 turn these head combine themselves into one state led by the Continental Congress but we needed to set up a more official control or national government so the Continental Congress drafted our first Constitution known as the Articles of Confederation and let's get a definition for a constitution a constitution is like a rulebook for government it's like an owner's manual a tells you the government works what it can do and how the government is set up and this leads to our Benchmark which says do identify how the weaknesses off the Articles of Confederation led to the writing of the Constitution so from a benchmark we know that this first constitution was two week and that a new one was needed but we have to identify what does weaknesses were for your exam and just reminder teachers that this PowerPoint and lessons are available at Teachers Pay Teachers just search for mr. Raymond's Civics EOC Academy the original 13 colonies had become 13 states and combine themselves under their new name the United States now what is a word that is often used to describe a country or a nation but the US was different we basically had 13 Littles countries or states that have been doing their own things since the 1600s but in order to fight the British they would have to join together under a Central Authority  so this new national government released the Articles of Confederation in 1777 but it would need to be ratified by the individual states and these states were reluctant to give up some of their powers so the Articles of Confederation wasn't officially ratified until 1781 six years into the Revolutionary War it created a loose Quantum Confederation of States known as quote on quote the league of friendship now this name really demonstrates how weak a government the states wanted to make its like Virginia was saying to Massachusetts yeah we want to be friends but that's not as serious a relationship as we're willing to be in at this point so let's get a couple of definitions down and these will be our key terms that we need intendo to ratify is to formally approve and this is a word we will be using in our next two videos you're going to need to know for your exam so I hope you're writing these down ratify is something that governments do when they approve a law or an Ax Men or in this case a constitution  next is a Confederation and a confederation is a cyst of government and we're going to be doing systems of government later this year a confederation is a system or a union of states that combine under a central Authority confederations usually come together for a common purpose and in this case that purpose was to the British  and our next term is central government and that is a national government we call our national government the Federal we'll come back to that later look at this point you picked up on the fact that the Articles of Confederation was very weak and in the confederation created the states had all the power they pretty much told the national government what to do and the national or central government pretty much no power over the states and we'll look at the problems that this created in a minute but it's important to know why the colonists wanted to create a weak central government and the answer to that is simple they declared their independence from Great Britain because they thought that the British government King and Parliament was too powerful they were basically bullying us they were taxing us without giving us a say and so States knew they needed a national government to lead the war effort but that is pretty much the only thing they wanted it to do at this point this Confederation and the Articles or Constitution that establishes was week on purpose now we need to look at those weaknesses because it will help explain the national government that was established later one that still runs our country today so we see in this list weaknesses so let's start writing these down and the first one is that each state had only one vote in Congress not that sounds fair considering that these 13 states wanted to keep their independence but almost immediately larger States like Virginia Pennsylvania and your would have a problem with this Virginia remember this country was first settled in Jamestown Virginia Virginia would say hey we have 10 rains the number of people as Delaware so why don't we have 10 times the number of votes and this was an argument that would not be for a while the next thing we see is that there was no executive branch today our chief executive is the president and the executive that they have been living under was the king so we see why they were reluctant to create an executive but will also see that this is going to cause now before we get into the rest of the weaknesses let's look at some of the things the national Confederation government could do and I skip make a chart in my notes like this with powers versus its weaknesses on the other side but this text is pretty small so let's look more closely at these points okay so what could do it could it created a national government it could coordinate the war effort against the British it could declare war but war was already being thought so this was a little late but we needed a national government making it official and leading the effort so the government could also sign treaties now this was especially important when they were ready to sign the peace treaty at end of the war but the national government was also looking to sign treaties with Great Britain's enemies and they were able to do this with Fran switch plate huge role in winning the Revolutionary War the French navy blockaded the British in Yorktown which pretty much caused the British to surrender next the central could actually pass laws and amendments but they made it almost impossible to pass them and we will look at this in a minute now let's return our weaknesses and we already know it made a weak national government and this one vote per stage no executive but here's to more need the biggest weaknesses and this one would have huge effects and that was they could not tax wow a government that can't tax now it's no wonder the colonists didn't want to give the national government the power to tax after all that's what pissed us off about the British government right taxes but this decision is going to come back to bite them and will look closely at the problems this cause so next they couldn't regulate Commerce or trade and again I hope you're adding these to your list and this is going to be a problem as well so let's add these and look at them further Okay so what is crazing Army in some people seem to get confused about that they could raise an army they could declare war and they could sign treaties but the problem is that wearing war and raising an army is incredibly expensive and how do you pay for your army well through taxes done but they couldn't text so how are they going to get the money to pay for this war against the most powerful army in the world well they had to beg the States from mine and no one likes a better yes the Congress could borrow money and you might add this to your list of things they can do all the borrowing money does not give you a lot of power and hungry some mediately starts begging not just the states for money but also countries like France and the Dutch but both of those countries don't think of this point that us has much of a chance against the British okay so they're reluctant to give them money and the states are telling the Congress star money to pay for our own troops to fight the British because this was war in which the US which had just become the US didn't really have National army they would put one together called the Continental Army but this was really made up of various militias from the states so here we see George Washington and Valley Forge who is begging Congress from money because some of his men don't even have shoes or food and Congress is name the states so right about now this whole no taxing thing is not going too well and this is probably the biggest weakness of the Articles let's examine the others the problem of not being able to regulate trade or Commerce because all of the states were make their own trade deals with other countries and they can also tax each other's goods and nothing leads to more fights than money central government had no power to resolve these problems another weakness of the Articles Confederation was that it was incredibly difficult to pass laws and almost possible to pass amendments an amendment is a change or an addition to the Constitution to pass a law required 9 out of states that is a large majority our Congress today simply needs one more than 50% and they have a very hard time to get near 75% would have been extremely difficult and if they wanted to pass an amendment something like say I don't know end slavery it would have been again almost impossible and finally no executive meant that there was no one to enforce the as you guys know the president who is our chief executive is a very important part of our national government and Congress can pass all the laws it wants but without the executive branch who is going to make sure that the laws are followed and today the executive branch of the national government is made up of 4 million employees with agencies like the FBI and the CIA the EPA which protects the environment and the FDA which protects our foods and medicines without the executive branch it would be very difficult for congressional laws to be a bit now also missing was the judicial branch this includes the Supreme Court and it's the job of this Branch to make sure that not only are our laws fair but people are being treated fairly under them now we're going to learn a lot about the three branches this year which as you can tell we eventually created our next Constitution so after the Articles failed to even create them obviously some big changes are coming okay so a quick review of our week what is that you will need to know for your exam no National court system or judicial branch no power to enforce the laws because there was no executive branch no power to tax and those are kind of the big three that you really need to memorize so here's a chart with our weaknesses and the results so you might want to hit pause and write these down if you haven't been already but we're going to be going over these into more detail about how they fix these in our next video that really demonstrates the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation that lead to the drafting of new constitution is an event known as Shays rebellion and for many this is the straw that broke the camel's back Daniel Shay what's a farmer from Western Massachusetts and like a lot of farmers who went off to fight the war his family struggled to make any money while I was gone one of the biggest problems with the Congress being unable to Levy taxes is that they could not pay their soldiers so Shay's and Men others who returned home from war we're basically given an I owe you for the money they had earned fighting the war now to make matters worse this the Massachusetts tax and since Shane's and other soldiers still owe taxes on their Farms the state began foreclosing or teaching away their Farms so Shays led a large group of farmers all of whom still have their weapon from the war in a row Ian on the very court houses that were taking away their Favre's there's a picture it looks like maybe that's Daniel Shays beating up the judge has the Rebellion began to gather steam they lead a raid on an Armory with a state's weapons were being stored and the problem is we need someone to stop now those who would not been convinced that the Articles of Confederation and the national government were too weak this finally did the because there was no taxes there was no federal forces to stop Shays and because there was no executive there was no branch that go out and enforce this okay and because there was no taxes there was no money to lend to the states which is pretty much gone broke time is extremely long War so something had to be done and that is what we will discuss next time but before we do let's review the most important weaknesses of the Articles were there was no taxes  there was no way to enforce the law and that was only one branch and remember Shay's Rebellion demonstrated To America that the Articles of Confederation was too weak next time we will pick up with what Congress did about this thanks for watching it be sure to subscribe teachers this PowerPoint again is available Teachers Pay Teachers as well as lesson plans just search for mr. Raymond Civics EOC Academy and

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The Articles of Confederation

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