Articles Of Confederation Dbq

Historians believe, the years from 1781 to 1789, the confederation period as one of the most important time periods in the construction of the United States of America. After their years of fighting against Brittan, the colonies, now turned states, needed to develop their new government. The result was the articles of confederation. A simple constitution, was ratified in 1781 by all states just after the end of the revolutionary war. But from their ratification in 1781 to their abandonment in 1789, the articles were completely insufficient. They gave the U.S a practically ineffective government. Even though they didn’t do a good job controlling the people, what the articles did do was show to the people that they really did need a strong central …show more content…
This is pointed out in the letter from Joseph Jones to George Washington. Congress was legally able to request money from the individual states but couldn’t be as harsh as demand money from them. This inability forged huge consequences for Congress. This meant that the members couldn’t be paid because of the lack of money. Since they weren’t being paid, there was serious skepticism within the people about the idea of a central government. With the lack of finances, congress also wasn’t able to provide a strong military, which left the newly develop nation practically …show more content…
Other nations had no desire to follow congresses demands since there wasn’t a military threat as well as the lack of a strong unified nation. In 1785, John jay requested the U.S. minister of Great Britain to demand “ in a respectful but firm manner” the stoppage of restrictions to the U.S’s trade as well as the return of land within the U.S. frontier which was sill controlled by Britain. Neither of these requests occurred due to the government of the U.S. In regards to Spain, the two main issues were explained by John jay in 1786: Spain requested that the U.S. stop their navigation rights on the Mississippi river as well as release some land claimed farther over to the west. Even though the U.S. farmers relied heavily on these rights, John Jay ended up lifting these while negotiating to the Spanish minister at the time. the rights given up were never actually secured until after the government ended, and the discussion about the land wasn’t resolved until force was used later on in the 19th century. When it came to congress’s goals with foreign policy, the articles were proven to be completely

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Article Of Confederation Dbq