Position:Home>History> Explain the basic structure of government under the Articles of Confederation. a

Think United Nations or European Union but worse in some ways!. The Articles provided for one branch of government, the congress!. Each state had one representation!. It could ask state governments for money, but could not tax people directly!. All decisions had to be unanimous!.

Congress could make treaties, but it had no way to force the states to abide!. In fact, several states started setting up their own ambassadors and agreements with foreign powers!.

Really, each state pretty much operated as its own country, and they would meet to try to find common ground!. Not easy, in fact, some states were on the verge of war with each other!.

The only thing the articles gave congress to power to do was to amend the articles!. That's how the ball got rolling on the current constitution!. Those who wanted to dump the articles, convinced the general public that the constitutional convention was meeting to only amend the articles!. And they did!. They amended them right out of existence!.

Other than the separation from Britain, the Revolution did not change much!. That was the secret of its success!. Unlike other revolutions that would come latter, most of the population was more or less content with the social and economic status quo!. There were no cries for land reform and other wealth redistribution!. Due to Britain's very liberal, relative to other colonial powers, policies, the colonies had a higher standard of living than Britain unless you were a slave!.

Unlike revolutions in France and the Latin American colonies, there was no authoritarian government in place!. Remember, for most of their time as colonies, they had their own legislatures and courts!. People, not all, but significant numbers could vote!. The colonies had local, responsible government!. The argument with Britain is that they had no say in national government!.

Really, there were only two major changes to colonial society to come out of the revolution!. First was the elimination of official religions!. Most colonies had an official religion that tax money was used to support like the Church of England, Church of Scotland, Church of Ireland, and Catholic Church back in Europe!. This began to be done away with!.

Second, Northern states began to question the morality of slavery in a nation that was billed as being for liberty!. Slave populations in the North were very small, mostly servants, because the region did not lend itself to slave based agriculture!. So, one by one, they began to outlaw slavery!.
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