After the Declaration of Independence was signed, the American colonies wanted to form a new government.

In March 1781, the first national constitution of the United States was put into action, named the Articles of Confederation. However, there were weaknesses in the Articles of Confederation. One was Congress inability to force states to give soldiers for an army. Another weakness of the Articles of Confederation was that the national government could not control the paper money the states printed. These two weaknesses impacted the young nation as the American government could not solve foreign trade problems or inflation. The Articles of Confederation restricted the government from forcing the states to provide soldiers for an army. This was proved to be a serious weakness because the national government did not have the power to protect the nation from foreign threats. For example, the United States couldnt force Britain to return forts on their side of the Great Lakes. These forts protected important resources and fur-trading routes, which have economic worth. Another example, when Spain did not let the United States ship through the lower Mississippi river and Congress did not organize an agreement between the United States. Spain broke off negotiations, keeping the ports closed to American shipping and financially hurting western farmers and merchants. According to the Holt 7th grade social studies textbook, critics think that if the United States had an army that Spain might have continued to work out negotiations. So the Articles of Confederation prevented the United States from having an army negatively affected the nation and therefore is considered a weakness. The Articles of Confederation also prevented the national government from controlling the paper money the states printed. Since there was no stable currency every state had different paper money value. According to www.louisiana.edu, Absence of a uniform, stable currency also disrupted trade among the states meaning since there was no uniform money system,

merchants who had to do business between states had great trouble. Also, when some states printed large amount of paper money and there was inflation. Inflation is the reduction of money caused by the rise of prices for goods and/or services. Inflation also helped to fuel a depression. So not having the national government control the printing of paper of money was another weakness of the Articles of Confederation. Under the Articles of Confederation, the government did not work well. There were too many weaknesses in the plan. Two of those weaknesses were governments inability to force states to provide soldiers for an army and the governments inability to control the printing of paper money. They can be proved to be weakness by their negative impact on the government. They affected the nation negatively by not being able to solve foreign trade and stop inflation. Therefore, the Articles of Confederation were unsuccessful as it had many weaknesses that had a negative impact on the young nation.

Citations The Holt 7th Grade Social Studies Textbook "Part I--THE CONSTITUTION: AN ENDURING DOCUMENT [Excerpt]."Www.ucs.louisiana.edu. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Feb. 2014.