Articles Of Confederation Pros And Cons

In this unit, we learned about the two types of governments the US Constitution and the Articles of Confederation. We also learned about people views on these two types of government. The United States Constitution created a strong central government using checks and balances. Under the Constitution, there were three branches of government: the executive, legislative and judicial branch ("Branches of Government."). Under the articles of confederation, there was a weak central government with limited powers ("Transcript of Articles of Confederation (1777)."). Both the Articles of Confederation and the US Constitution had many pros and cons. The people in the colonies either had federalist or anti-federalist views. A federalist is a person who

supported the constitution whereas an anti-federalist is a person who opposed the ratification of the constitution. Shays Rebellion was a result of farmers being unable to pay their taxes due to their governor’s lack of ability to represent them. This event was an example showing the need for change in the government (History.com Staff.).

One of my primary struggles in this unit was understanding the class activity dangers of the extended republic. I struggled with this because the document we had to read to answer the questions to the class worksheet was written in olden day English. Therefore the language in this document was very hard to understand. Since I was unable to understand this document I struggled to find problems with the Constitution. I was only able to understand this document after spending an hour writing out what each sentence meant in the document.

One of my main success in this unit was being able to relate how Shays Rebellion was an event showing the need for change in this government. This was a success because I was easily able to relate Shays Rebellion to the government and how bad the government is. This was very easy for me because I was able to imagine what it was like to be a farmer who had to go to jail due to the governor being able to identify all of the people of their state’s needs.

My learning gives me a better understanding of the world around me because I now understand everything can be improved. I know this because originally when the Articles of Confederation were written one of the articles states that the Articles of Confederation would be the rules forever but as years passed the government kept changing and improving. This is just like a school assignment. You can always improve on an assignment even when you get a 100 ("Transcript of Articles of Confederation (1777).").