A number of factors played a part of choosing what government the founding fathers would choose. At first, they established the Articles of Confederation. The Articles were ratified during war with Britain, so it was set in a war based aura. It allowed the country to conduct foreign affairs, declare war, and make treaties. It could not collect taxes, but the states could. Being at war was expensive, so the fact that it could not collect taxes created serious issues. The government was extremely weak. The Articles of Confederation did accomplish some things, like the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which set up a process to create five new states while outlawing slavery in all five new states, and it also won the war. On September 17, 1787, the …show more content…
The Enlightenment era showed light on whether or not monarchs, Kings or Queens, really acquired their absolute power from God. People started to think with their own minds, they started to think intellectually. The Enlightenment acknowledged three philosophers, John Locke, Baron de Montesquieu, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who are now widely known for their famous political theories. Let's start with Thomas Hobbes, a famous English philosopher whose ideas are later contradicted by John Locke. Hobbes believed in something called “State of Nature” which is the condition of human beings without political association. There is no government, no authority whatsoever. Every being is born equal and share the right to do anything for their survival. His political theory was based off his idea that all humans are naturally evil and selfish. Hobbes said that this equality leads to war. “...a war of every man against every man.” He believed people act selfishly, so they could not be trusted to make their own decisions. Hobbes said that the only purpose of a government was to protect people from their own evil and …show more content…
Locke was an English philosopher widely known for his political theories and is considered to be one of the most influential enlightenment thinkers. Contrary to what Hobbes said, Locke believed that when an infant is born he is neither good or evil. He said that every human being is born with a blank slate, or tabula rasa as he called it. As the infant grew older, the environment surrounding him shaped his personality. It was believed that adult surrounding the child could potentially have an everlasting effect on the child’s future. Since a child’s mind is so malleable, any person could shape it with assiduity. Locke also believed that each and every person is born with three basic natural rights: life, liberty, and property. One knows when these rights are being violated when someone tries to take your life, your liberty and if someone stole your possessions. Locke believed that government only existed to protect these natural rights. His father fought in what is known as the English Civil War, which is the war between Parliament and the King over how much power the King should have. So Locke knew that the government could you abuse its power by taking away your natural rights just as easily as you are
The Articles Of Confederation was approved in 1781, created an alliance of thirteen independent states. The states were only united in theory, even though the states acted on their own accord. Unlike todays government, the Articles Of Confederation consisted only of a one house legislature. There was no President, no executive branch, or court system. Also, each state had only one vote in the "congress".
The Articles of Confederation (A.o.C.) was the official government for the United States after independence from Britain. This government was weak, and ineffective. It could not fix the nation's problems which prompted a call for change. The men that changed this government are known are the founding fathers. The founding fathers attended a convention that would be known as our constitutional convention.
Ever heard of the Articles of Confederation? Thought not. That’s because within only 8 years of their ratification, they were gotten rid of. This was because, among other things, there were no courts, no national currency, and no taxes. So in May of 1787, 55 men gathered together in Philadelphia to come up with a better plan.
The Articles of Confederation didn’t do too good, which led to some issues. For example, the United States was in a debt, there were many economic problems such as currency with no value, and that British goods were being brought into the United States at a fast rate. After the Articles of Confederation failed the U.S.
Article of Confederation was created on March 1, 1781 by Antifederalists. The government of United States was weak after the Articles of Confederation. Anti Federalists created the Articles of Confederation because they believed that the government would become to strong and wouldn’t care about people having equal rights and this gave states their power of making their own rules toward equality and taxes. This made the government a nationally weak system with bits of power in hand. After the Article of Confederation the states had much more power and ability to make their own policies.
The Articles of Confederation was a document used to create a stable form of government for the United States during the American Revolution. However, this new form of national government had a mostly negative effect, with some exceptions, on the foreign relations and economic conditions of the country. Therefore, the Articles of Confederation was too weak and unstable to sustain the American country and made situations worse for the United States, rather than helping it improve and succeed on their way to independence. The American Revolution took place over the course of approximately eight years, from 1775 to 1783.
Our founding fathers adopted the Articles of Confederation as the first constitution of the United States, shortly after gaining independence from Great Britain. The Articles basically established how the federal government would function free of British rule. What the founding fathers failed to see or forecast were the potential issues that came about shortly after the Articles were ratified by the states. The Articles did not give the federal government much power as people at the time were afraid of a powerful central government. The new government was unable to impose any laws or levy taxes on the colonies as each was independent.
The Articles of Confederation were the first set of guidelines for the government in America that was ratified in 1781. The Articles of Confederation limited the powers of the government, gave most of the control to each individual state, did not require a president, and was quickly found to be ineffective. It left America at risk to be invaded by other countries or to suffer from economic problems. If another country wanted to conduct business in America, they had to deal with each state individually. Any amendment required unanimous approval (Evans & Michaud, 2015).
Locke believed that it was needed to protect these natural right that led people to establish governments in the first place. Locke believed people had the right in extreme causes to overthrow the monarch and change the government. Locke believed that human nature was characterized by reason and tolerance. People were allowed
However, he saw the government as man-made, not divine because the government's purpose was to keep law and order. In, Leviathan Hobbes argued that man in his natural state is ruthless, and needed an absolute ruler for the best form of government. For instance, he claimed that people were born with rights, but they should give them away to the government for protection. In other words. Hobbes believed that people were ruthless, so much so, that he called the state of man “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
Following the Revolutionary War, America had just gained independance from Great Britain and needed to form a new government. The Articles of Confederation were established as an attempt to create a government that was unlike Britain’s. Unfortunately, the Articles of Confederation had several weaknesses. When in the process of repairing those weaknesses, the Federalists and the Anti-federalists formed. The Articles of Confederation were very weak as well as useless to America and because of this, the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists could not agree on a new type of government.
Justice is one of the most important moral and political concepts. The word comes from the Latin word jus, meaning right or law. According to Kelsen (2000), Justice is primarily a possible, but not a necessary, quality of a social order regulating the mutual relations of men As a result of its importance, prominent and knowledgeable people have shared their views on justice and what it means and how the state is involved in its administration. The likes of Plato, Aristotle, Socrates, Thomas Hobbes and John Locke among others have written extensively on the concept of justice.
Hobbes thought the world was is a state of nature before government and that life was, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. He believed that without an absolute ruler, we would kill each other. Hobbes wrote this theory with his experiences of the English Civil war, where the government in England broke down. John Locke believed
In one hand, the Articles of Confederation had a weak central government, differing form the strong central government in the Constitution. The Constitution’s government had a structure of three different branches; the legislative, executive, and judicial branch; unlike the Articles of Confederation that had no structure whatsoever. The Articles of Confederation had many problems like, the poor international trade, poor foreign relations and a weak economy in contrast to the Constitution that only had one problem, the struggle over the ratification. the Articles of Confederation achieved the Northwest Ordinance and the Northwest Territory and according to a history website, the Constitution achieved that we had a system of checks and balances, that we had a bill of rights, and, eventually, the survival of a bloody civil war intact. Lastly, the Constitution had three compromises: the Great Compromise, the Three-Fifths Compromise and the Slave Trade compromise.
Hobbes thought that we are inherently bad and therefore we need an authoritative body to keep order in society,